Protecting Your Rights And Holding Those With Power Accountable
The police are meant to be a body you can call on to protect you. To protect you when someone else threatens to harm you, has harmed you, stolen your possessions and so much more. While police officers certainly do this, sometimes they are the ones who harm others....
While the police are legally obligated to carry out their duties in a fair and respectful manner, it’s not always the case. Some law enforcement officers overstep their mandate or abuse the authority bestowed upon them, leading to unjust treatment of civilians. You...
Concerns surrounding the use of excessive force by law enforcement agencies have sparked widespread discussions on the boundaries of police conduct. While the police are allowed to use reasonable force in some circumstances, what exactly constitutes excessive force,...
When people being subdued by the police cry out that they can’t breathe, why do the police often seem indifferent? Some officers believe that it isn’t possible to talk if you can’t breathe and dismiss the complaints as lies. Unfortunately, that isn’t true. In other...
Technology continues to march forward. Cameras are everywhere – security cameras, doorbell cams and cellphones mean that cameras are almost always available when something of interest happens. When it comes to police violence, just having that footage has been a...
In 2014, the United States Department of Justice and the Albuquerque Police Department entered into a consent decree. The Justice Department had found "reasonable cause to believe that APD engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, including deadly...
According to MappingPoliceViolence.org, New Mexico stands only behind Wyoming in the rate of police killings per capita. The nonprofit project says that police in New Mexico killed 32 people last year. The projects record all instances where an on- or off-duty police...
2022 was a record-breaking year for the Albuquerque Police Department in terms of police shootings. There were 18. Ten people were killed and three were injured. That is extremely disheartening, since the APD has been under the supervision of the U.S. Department of...
In an ideal world, officers who repeatedly commit misconduct would lose their jobs and never work in law enforcement again. That doesn’t always happen. What if there were a way to use market forces to make it happen more often? What if police officers were required to...
People convicted and incarcerated for crimes they have committed have constitutional rights, even while serving prison terms. Still, constitutional violations in prisons and jails are common. Police brutality, mistreatment and neglect of inmates while in state custody...