okay so we spent a lot of time on this week's episode of New Mexico and focus talking about the vexing issue of criminal accountability for police officers whose on duty conduct goes beyond a policy violation so we wanted to explore some solutions for an online only segment especially because of who is at the table with me this week search light New Mexico investigative reporter Joshua bowling um a longtime civil rights attorney and deputy director of the ACLU of New Mexico Leon Howard and retired Metro Court Judge Sharon Walton so all right everybody here is a quote from AG RL Torres at his news conference announcing voluntary manslaughter charges against Los Cruz's police officer Brad lindford in the fatal shooting of Presley aay here's the quote we need to start having a broader more complicated conversation on why this keeps happening in this country regardless of the outcome of this prosecution we have a much broader task in front of us in this community and all across the country this was a tragedy that never should have happened I want everyone to understand that when aay lost his life on the pavement outside that gas station the original call that came in was for petty theft so let's try a version of that more complicated conversation here at this table judge Walton what needs to happen so that the police shoot fewer people in New Mexico you if I had the answer to that I I would have shared it long before I it's it is a really complicated question and in preparing for all of this today I tried to do a lot of research and I found one study that really looked at multiple officers being at the scene and some made the decision to shoot and others not and to look at the difference between them and I think that's a novel approach and I think it's something we need to look at because some of the things that we've blamed or cited research doesn't seem to to support that that is the cause or that is the problem so I think it's maybe letting go of those preconceived notions that we have about what's driving this and what's causing it and really try to do some some step back and look at some of those more fundamental things and and be willing to let go of our our firmly held belief about what's wrong and what needs to be changed because agencies that have made those changes and have done those things are experiencing more shootings not less so it is more complicated and we don't have it figured out and I think we need to take a step back and start over again with our research to really look at it and try to find what is causing this and it obviously is a response by a police officer but so much more happens before that so you can't usually ever fix one side of a problem you have to to fix both sides and I think we focus on one side and then we focus on the other and we you know that holistic response that you always need I think that's where we need to look what do you think some of those um dry holes or fruitless things that have been changed in a lot of police departments in America what are some examples of that like those areas of research or Focus that haven't gotten us anywhere the diversity of the police forces was one I I absolutely thought that you know mirroring the the community was and having people that came from different walks of life was going to change this and the research that I was reading preparing for this was suggesting that those folks were involved in more shootings not less which shocked me I that's not what I was expecting to read you know a lot of the preconceived notions I had about what contributes and when I went to read to prepare for this I was I was surprised that they didn't seem to help obviously Education and Training and working with the community is always a good thing but that one hit me and one that I would have never occurred to me that the the study I was telling you about was officers that are involved in misdemeanors for the most of their day in most of their work tended to be less likely to be involved in shootings than those who deal with felonies and violence more and it they would deescalate more than those who were habitually exposed to the more dangerous and violent situations that seems like such common sense that but that's the only study I found that had identified that as a factor to look at and changing the way maybe officers are assigned and how they respond to calls and things like that might be a different approach that could we could take that's not something I'd ever heard before I read that study and that that cultural aspect that the judge mentioned is very important to the conversation um the train and diversity issues within police forces is is a big topic but like so many issues going to the root and the history of law enforcement itself in our country um has to be examined you know there's a direct line from police forces to slave patrols and so when you have that root that Foundation of a system that that is designed um to Target people of color um it's not surprising that when you pluck people of color into those systems you're still producing the same result there there's a culture issue in police policing and especially here in New Mexico uh shoot first ask questions later and from my experience on the side of of litig ating civil rights cases and hearing officers talk among each other there's a tendency to dehumanize people from different backgrounds and so when you start um viewing people as not human that you're encountering with uh it's not a surprise that you're uh when you're making split cision split second decisions um that um you're more prone to pull the trigger uh when you don't share characteristics with with the person you're dealing with so what is the thing that we are not talking about or not focused on um backing up before that police officer's finger is on the trigger and pulling it what is the big idea that we haven't tried in New Mexico yet to try to do something about those Nation leading statistics every year we we um rely on our police to do too much um we need our police they're they're trained to fight crime and so there's a common theme of all the society's Al when lawmakers are uncomfortable when Society is uncomfortable uh with something we end up making it illegal and then it becomes the police's problem um we rely on our our police officers to be homelessness coordinators we rely on our police officers to be uh Mental Health crisis intervention specialist we rely on our police officers to be um addiction experts and and the the reality is those issues should be um either working W with experts in those fields in conjunction with our police officers or wholly reimagining policing and what the appropriate circumstances are for police to respond to issues and where the intervention points are and when we can have emergency responders who are trained to deal with smaller issues uh my heart goes out to uh the family and the Presley is a um situation um that was a misdemeanor encounter uh he's accused of stealing a beer that's right and so um as we talked about earlier the the the law in New Mexico under justifiable homicide um is very very uh deferential to police where there is some indication that Force especially deadly forces is frowned upon uh even with deferential laws is when you're encountering somebody who's suspected of a misdemeanor and that's where um the concept of deescalation um really comes in there's so many times I've reviewed encounters uh through lapel cameras where you have an officer responding to a situation and instead of taking measures to play a peacekeeper they continually escalate the situation and New Mexicans have to feel safe that when you call the police out to an encounter uh when you're calling for help that they're not going to come there and make things worse to that point oh no please I was going to say there is no one big idea it sounds like from your perspective there are a bunch so yeah I'll kick it to you Joshua to finish up what has come up in your reporting um in terms of solutions to this thing that we all keep talking about every year right I I've spent a lot of time Across the Western us with Denver Albuquerque Los cruus places where we've started down this road of creating some sort of Public Safety department that is not police to handle these these very C homelessness mental health crises things like that uh here in Albuquerque we've had Albuquerque Community safety uh for about 3 years it was announced uh within days of APD shooting and killing Max mitnik in his home who of course was suffering a mental health crisis and and needed someone who was trained in mental health issues um we've had that department for three years now in the time that we've had that department police shootings in this city have only increased fatal police shootings have only increased and the common theme that I I keep coming back to in my reporting when I speak with responders on these teams experts around the country is that no matter how much how many millions of dollars we sink into these departments and we do here in Albuquerque we've made a huge commitment to ACS our dispatchers are still sending police officers to many of these calls because they they can't break the old habit that well if it's a mental health crisis that could be dangerous maybe we need a police officer there even if the person is unarmed even if the person doesn't have a criminal history and that to me seems to be the the biggest issue we've we've seen come out of my reporting is that a training or policy issue is that a matter of obviously the State Department of Public Safety is the entity that certifies dispatchers and also police officers is is that what that is is there a statutory change that needs to happen is there a bigger conversation that we're not having that looks like maybe the dispatch might be a spot where we could look to change something absolutely early in this year I spent a lot of time with Elaine mestas whose sister Alicia Lucero was killed by bcso deputies years ago she took a job with ACS as a first responder she was going to these calls and the number one thing she told me over and over again was no matter how hard we fight for this department the police are still being sent out dispatch will not stop sending armed police officers to the scene of nonviolent calls and I I think that opens up another can of worms when we're looking at uh Presley e and Los Cruses sure Los crusis has um project light it is there you know nonviolent response team made up of a firefighter paramedic and a mental health professional even if it was operational When Brad Lunsford shot him in the parking lot of that gas station would they have been sent this was over petty theft so police ultimately still would have been called at the end of the day and I think that really really bears looking into I appreciate all three of you spending a minute to explore some of the solutions after what was a difficult conversation about problem thanks so much