Work Session Meeting February 24, 2025 MINUTES Work Session Monday, February 24, 2025 @ 1:00 PM City Council Chambers, City Hall PRESENT: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Cassie McClure ABSENT: Councilor Yvonne Flores, Mayor Eric Enriquez, and Councilor William Mattiace 1. JOBS OF THE WEEK 1.1 Sarah Raney, America’s Job Center New Mexico, gave an overhead presentation. 2. PETS OF THE WEEK 2.1 Carol Nielson, Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley, gave an overhead presentation. 3. READ CLOSED MEETING STATEMENT FOR FEBRUARY 24, 2025. 3.1 The Las Cruces City Council met in closed session and only discussed those limited items as stated in the posted notice to discuss pending litigation regarding Estrada, Francisco v. City of Las Cruces, Et Al. - D-307-CV-2021-01309, which is closed pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 10-15-1H(7). 4. AGENDA ITEM 4.1 THE ALLIANCE FOR REGIONAL MILITARY SUPPORT (ARMS) UPDATE. Elizabeth Teeters, Economic Development Director, introduced the topic Gus Rodriguez and Richard Dayoub, ARMS gave an overhead presentation. 4.2 7TH SEMI-ANNUAL POLICE AUDIT REPORT PRESENTED BY THE OIR GROUP. Viola Perea, City Auditor, introduced the topic. Stephen Connolly, OIR Group, gave an overhead presentation. Teresa Magula, OIR Group, continued the overhead presentation. Stephen Connolly continued the overhead presentation. Teresa Magula continued the overhead presentation. Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said thank you for ending on the note about the community meeting and how that went, I think there are members of our community who care very deeply about the question of police oversight and accountability so I’m glad that you were able to see that and that they showed up to these opportunities. I just have some big overarching questions, I always do appreciate when you write in your memos when there’s been disagreements with your findings and the findings of AI or the Police Department in general, but I’m wondering what happens after that? You disagree and then what? Teresa Magula said so essentially the process of discipline lives in the hands of the Chief of Police, right? So, when we have a disagreement as to a finding on a case that is closed, more often than not, and that is not just here in Las Cruces, it is across all of our work, there is no going back to change that finding. However, what we are looking for is to raise the concern as a possibility for future action. Sometimes our disagreement might result in a holistic measure, so it can’t influence the individual case and the individual officer’s outcome, but it may result in a holistic change: policy change, training bulletin, some other remedial action on the larger scope, and that is really the intention. Other times it is simply to raise, to both you and members of the public, that maybe it didn’t quite go the way that we thought it should go. We want to make folks aware that there is space for that disagreement if the evidence did not support the findings in the way that we saw it. Stephen Connolly said the only thing I would add is oftentimes it ends up in the agree to disagree category, it’s not hey we think this is a fundamental breach of ethics or integrity or anything else, often times it is a more nuanced insight that we might have or an approach and, as Teresa said, it’s not our role to substitute our judgement for that of the department but just to flag the issues hopefully in a constructive way on a going forward basis in the dialogue with the department is always constructive. Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said I’m curious about the note they made, officer to supervisor, potential for training, if you could speak more to that opportunity and how you are thinking about it. Jeremy Story, Police Chief said that program has existed since I’ve been here for our first time supervisors or sergeants. However, it is definitely improved and will continue to improve and there is room for that improvement. Just to give you some context, when I promoted to sergeant in January of 2014, I started my first day on patrol as a sergeant by myself as a sergeant. And so, there was already a field training program for supervisors at that time, but obviously I hadn’t received any of it and I was already by myself as a sergeant, making decisions. Not optimal. That’s changed a lot over time, that doesn’t happen anymore, and so the formal training program started probably two years ago or so. So, we make sure that our sergeants have all the different kinds of pieces or blocks that they should have. Internal affairs training, critical incident training, leadership training, and they have that hopefully before they become a sergeant or shortly after because it comes in different blocks. They also go to a first line supervision class, that’s been a 40 hour class that people go to forever, but that’s certainly not sufficient and in the field training program we just tweak that and modify it to make it better. I’m very happy with the work that went into it and what it looks like now and so that it hopefully is the next level of what we’ve been doing. And that actually started we had two sergeants promote on Sunday and they just started that new program so we will have a good measure or review of how it went soon. Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said my last question really is around the civil disturbance, I think that that has been an issue for a while, including myself, and actually a few months ago at this point a local doctor, psychiatrist, met with myself, both our Chief of Police and Fire, to discuss this matter further and their sort of question was why can’t our team LIGHT out of the Fire Department be used in those instances? And, of course, I learned a lot from that conversation in terms of these calls being some of the most dangerous calls and why the Fire Department didn’t believe that that was necessarily a space for LIGHT, but I’m wondering if you have, you said this is happening across the country, what are the best practices that you have, can you just give us a summary of the best practices that you’ve provided and how to better address this specific issue? Teresa Magula said the first answer that I’ll give is there is not an easy answer to this one. We have reviewed programs nationwide and there are just an endless number of models. It really is city dependent and so, some models that work very effectively are to pair officers and clinicians and sometimes the resources just aren’t there to have that happen. Others that we have found that might be effective are similar to what is happening in the city to have a non-sworn response of clinicians that can respond to some of these calls. Now you run into the issue of potentially those calls having some public safety or danger components making it not quite safe for those teams to respond. We found that the hybrid model is effective and many cities are implementing that effectively where there is an initial law enforcement response and once that scene is secured, then there’s the component that can come in from the social service or clinical side. Certainly, there’s not an easy one size fits all for this type of crisis response. When we reviewed a case, I want to say it was maybe two cycles ago, and I can come back with more information on that for you, we found that the department was really doing its due diligence in terms of using its own internal resources to the best capacity so that the crisis negotiator role I’m really focusing on their de-escalation training and how they are going to interact with individuals from that stand point rather than coming in hard hitting with force or escalating an incident that is already fairly heated most of the time. So, we did review a case where we had some suggestions using the city’s resources to come into those calls in addition to the law enforcement response. Chief Story said I would make the distinction between a crisis response, someone in a mental health crisis, and then domestic violence, obviously there is overlap at times, but mental health crisis might spur the domestic disturbance or domestic violence issue, but there is a separation so again just to give the opportunity to give kudos to Fire, Project LIGHT has been a massive success. I thought it was going to work, I think it has worked even better than I thought, our officers trust it and I don’t know much room really there is for expansion just logistically but that’s worked very well for the crisis response side of things. For domestic violence I think it is a little bit trickier, and we will look for ways, I’m open to ideas, that is harder. Liz Rodriguez-Johnson, Member of the Public said based on my own personal experience, I believe that Las Cruces Police Department is doing a good job, for the most part, and most of what is written in the OIR report indicates that the LCPD is doing a very good job. It is a good thing to have LCPD internal processes examined and it’s even better when the examination reveals that LCPD is doing a very good job. The report indicates that the LCPD is receptive to constructive criticism and making changes based on recommendations from the OIR experts, police experts, and from looking at their websites the OIR experts seem to have impeccable credentials. My main concern is the scope of the contract that OIR was awarded. Last year and the year before I believe, several of us were very specific in our request that the OIR contract include examinations of excessive use of force, especially when it leads to loss of life. There needs to be much more transparency when it comes to investigating cases where excessive use of force is executed because that is what the public is most concerned about. If I remember correctly, last year or the year before we were told that two committees within the city structure examines excessive use of force, but we were not briefed on what they learned or what was done to make sure it didn’t happen and looking at the issue historically, I am not convinced that enough is being done. In 2020 there was the Valenzuela case. I assume these committees did their thing to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, in ‘23 there was the Prestly Eze case, so I assume the committees did their thing again to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, again in ‘23 we had the Teresa Gomez case. I’m really worried because people are dying, and no one is telling us what is being done to prevent it. As a very concerned citizen, I’m asking again what are elected officials doing to prevent this? I do have a bone to pick with the OIR report, on page two it says that the Townhall was well attended, in my opinion it was not. I believe I am being generous when I say there was maybe fifteen people here and there was more than sufficient number of city staff, but none that could answer the question why the OIR contract did not include cases that dealt with excessive use of force that led to the loss of life. For that reason, I found the Townhall to be inadequate. My conclusion from the characterization that was just made was that the Townhall was sugarcoated then what else was sugarcoated? But to reiterate my main concern is if you don’t address the issue of excessive use of force that leads to the loss of life, you are not addressing the issue of the biggest concern to your community, thank you. Dr. Earl Nissen, Member of the Public asked during the seven audits, you never dealt with a police shooting incident, have you? Because I would think that as the recent trial, we had of an officer, there was very specific things about the policing that took place by the paid people who came for each side during the trial and I was thinking that much of what was said at the trial should be of interest to Chief Story because those extensive analyses were just the thing we would need possibly from OIR. OIR does these types of analyses, and I have read many of them when we were doing the research on doing a police review board last year. I’m not one to impede anything that Chief Story is doing, because I agree that we want a change in the police department. But when we come to the serious police shooting cases, I would think that any analysis that he could get from someone like OIR would help tremendously. Making any changes in procedures or hiring practices or whatever. So, I was wondering if the city council would be interested in extending our contract with OIR and that would have to be done to put in the contract a clause about doing analyses about police shootings and it would cost a little bit more for that service. My question for Teresa would be that have we ever had an OIR analysis of any of the police shootings? Teresa Magula said yes to answer the question, we have done one review of an officer involved shooting in the city of Las Cruces. That was a shooting that involved a S.W.A.T. call out and was associated with some different components, in that report we discussed the need for the department to potentially review some of those crisis negotiation style responses and so our report did include that type of analysis. The good news is that in order for us to review cases, they have to be administrative internal affairs investigations of a certain threshold and thanks to the changes that Chief Story has made since his tenure as chief, he is directing each of the officer involved shootings to have an administrative investigation that is the type that we can review. So, the good news is that it does not require a contract amendment at this point for us to take a look at those. The very unsatisfactory response is that we cannot look at these cases until they have been closed. So, a number of the cases that are providing more concern and challenge to community as well as to the department are currently pending litigation. Because of that, they have not entered into our scope as far as the timing of them, but they will be cases that we will review in the same holistic way that you have seen us review cases in other jurisdictions. What I can report to you is that in our next audit cycle we will have two of these cases to present to your council and so two cases will be coming in the next audit cycle, so stay tuned for a review of two of the more recent officer involved shootings and again we will be continuing to review those as litigation and all matters related to that case are closed. Chief Story said Teresa covered most of it, but just to make it clear, even before I was here every officer involved shooting generated an internal investigation, what we call an II. There’s two issues with that, one there was a back log in Internal Affairs, which now has been completely cleared out for all cases, so we’re caught up, which is best case for everybody, including the officers. It’s assigned, it’s investigated in a timely fashion. The second thing that delays it though is if there is litigation, that doesn’t go to OIR until it is completely resolved which takes time, but the reality is in the current scope of the contract every officer involved shooting eventually will go to OIR. Now we are starting to see it catch up basically from the time their contract started. Dr. Bobbie Green, Member of the Public said thank you for providing this report for the community, I am grateful for the transparency. I do have a couple of questions. My first question is with regard to the officer taskforce that investigates shootings, there seems to be a disconnect between the results of the officer taskforce investigation and in a very high-profile case that just completed. The results of the outcome of the jury verdict there were completely opposite. So, my question is is there something that can be done to make sure that the officer taskforce which, he mentioned the police are investigating themselves, can we bring in some external non-officers, somebody with a little less of an implicit bias towards the police so that we can avoid some of this costly long term protracted litigation. That’s my first question. Second question is it seems to me that there should be some red flags, there are some warnings about some of these cases that end up in fatalities, and so are we looking at early warnings? Are we looking at red flags? And if not, could we start doing that because that could save somebody’s life. Mayor Pro Tem Bencomo said just in terms of the first question I’ll answer it by saying the case you are referring to is not fully closed so we will not be further discussing that, however I think that the answer that they both just gave was that once some of those cases are fully closed that they will going through that OIR process. I think that is what I just heard, and it is relevant to your first question. The second question, Teresa or Chief, would you like to answer that? Chief Story said as far as early intervention or warning signs, we have an early intervention system which is one of many systems to identify potential trends which could be cause for concern. That goes through a process, there’s a policy for that; that’s on our transparency page and available through muni code as well if you want to look at the whole early intervention system policy. That by itself would never catch everything it’s just one of the layers; the reality is police officers are human beings, and they are going to make mistakes sometimes. Sometimes those mistakes are small, sometimes they are more consequential, and there is consequences and accountability for those mistakes. I would argue that there is more accountability in policing than in any other profession. I know you can’t see this, so I understand that you have to take my word for it and that is hard to do from the outside, but if you see the things that officers get disciplined for, and the amount of discipline, the amount of reprimands they receive for all kinds of stuff, it’s at that point where if I discipline them any more I’m not sure I’m going to have any police officers because we are constantly trying to address things and we try to address them at the lowest level possible so they don’t become bigger issues, but they can’t write a subpar report without being disciplined, if they submit it late they’re going to be disciplined, if their recording wasn’t all the way through the call the way it should be they will be disciplined, if they didn’t dock their camera the same day they could be disciplined. There is hundreds of policies and every one of those policies results in discipline for some people, if that makes sense. There is statements for all of these policies, it is a difficult balance between accountability and making sure that we don’t discipline to the point that we don’t have anybody left. I would argue, and it is hard to really demonstrate this, but anyway I can, I would, that there is a lot of discipline and accountability already occurring. No matter how much I do, bad things will still happen. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. We try to minimize and mitigate, and we should continue to look for ways to minimize and mitigate, because there is always more, we can do, but it is a difficult balance. Bobbie Green, Member of the Public said I appreciate your response Chief, and I do understand that this is a difficult situation, and we are dealing with human beings, but we are also dealing with human lives and some of those lives have been lost which I think could if we make a few adjustments maybe could be avoided. And that is what I’m looking to do is see what we can do to work together to avoid further incidents of loss of life which could eliminate a lot of excessive resources that we are spending, time that we are taking, resources that we have to deal with when something like this happens. So, my other question is I understand that it’s an after the fact situation where you deal with the outcome, but the problem is that’s more reactive than proactive. So, my question is how can we be more proactive, so we don’t have to get to where we have to react because we’ve done it upfront? Lucy Silva, Member of the Public said I’m a relatively new resident of Las Cruces so this is new to me. I’m wondering about the contract between the City and the OIR Group. They said that this is their seventh audit and I’m just kind of wondering how much longer it might include in the current contract or is this something that has to be renewed every so often? Viola Perea said the OIR Group was initially awarded a one year contract with four renewable one year contracts subsequent to that, they are currently starting their fifth year, we’ve already reached out to finance and we will be renewing the contract for the police auditor we’ll go out for an RFP and revisit the entire process again, but the OIR Group is by contract required to report twice a year to Council, they have one more year remaining, and then we’ll again go through that process again where they will be able to submit as well as anyone else interested in fulfilling that RFP for the City. 5. ADJOURNMENT 5.1 Councilor Becki Graham moved, seconded by Councilor Becky Corran, to Adjourn at 2:23 p.m. RESULT: Carried MOVER: Councilor Becki Graham SECONDER: Councilor Becky Corran AYES: Councilor Johana Bencomo, Councilor Becki Graham, Councilor Becky Corran, and Councilor Cassie McClure Mayor City Clerk