Town Hall Meeting Discusses Changes Needed to Help Ensure Public Safety [Part III: Staffing, Ordinances and Legal Obstacles]

This is the third installment reporting on the Town Hall Meeting held at City Hall on January 23, 2025. (Link to yesterday’s installment: Part II: Latest Crime Numbers) The YouTube recording of the Town Hall is available to watch, below.

After presenting a fairly bleak summary of the crime numbers for 2024, Chief Story listed his observations of the major contributors to the challenges faced by the Las Cruces Police Department. Among them were staffing challenges and legalities surrounding incarceration of violent repeat offenders. He also provided an update to city ordinances recently passed by the Las Cruces City Council intended to address retail theft, trespassing and other issues related to the growing homeless population in the city.

Staffing Update

As of the time of this presentation, of the 220 allocated positions for “Commissioned Officers”, only 192 have been filled. Included in this total are 5 currently in field training, two “lateral officers” and 3 recently rehired retirees. While still short of the allocated positions total, it is an increase from the last report provided.

In addition to Commissioned Officers, LCPD has added 3 Park Rangers and 7 additional Police Service Aides. These ten extra support positions have been filled; however, their academies do not begin until January 27, 2025. It will take a little time until they are fully able to provide support in the field.

Further support is expected to be developed in the near future with the full implementation of the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC). 5 operator positions are expected to be advertised in the coming weeks.

To punctuate his staffing summary, Chief Story announced the status of the 55th Academy. It is planned to start on April 21st with anticipated graduation on September 19th. There are currently 76 individuals remaining in the “hiring process” for this academy. Even with applicant attrition, there is hope that this will end up being a “big academy”, providing graduated officers to help fill the current deficit. “But we are still talking about a year from now,” Chief Story added.

New Ordinances Update

At about the 8:32 mark in the video, Chief Story updated the public on the status of the recently implemented ordinances. Ultimately, the ordinances have led to 11 individuals cited. One received a deferred sentence. One business was cited, but is still pending trial. The remaining nine citations are also pending trial.

Chief Story volunteered his opinion that the ordinances are difficult to quantify regarding effectiveness; however he believed they have been effective “for what they were intended to accomplish”.

Legal Obstacles

The first obstacle listed was current laws on the books regarding individuals charged and released due to “competency”. Criminal Competency and Pretrial Detention issues were described as the most important issue to be presented at the Town Hall. Given that the New Mexico Legislature is now in session, Chief Story provided the experiences of his department with repeat violent offenders and the problems surrounding unresolved problems with the current legal standards in New Mexico when it comes to issues of Criminal Competency and Pretrial Detention.

What is the current “Criminal Competency” law?

As the law stands, now, 31-9 NMSA 1978 states: “Whenever it appears that there is a question as to the defendant’s competency to proceed in a criminal case, any further proceeding in the cause shall be suspended until the issue is determined.” [31-9-1] Furthermore, “when, after a hearing, a court determines that a defendant is not competent to proceed in a criminal case and the court does not find that the defendant is dangerous, the court may dismiss the criminal case without prejudice in the interest of justice. [39-9-1.2(A)]

If a defendant is deemed “dangerous”, they would be remanded to Las Vegas, the state’s only facility to house those deemed incompetent and dangerous; however as the law is currently applied, there are limitations to what the courts deem as “dangerous”.

The legal definition of “dangerous”, as current law defines it, means “if [a defendant who is potentially incompetent is] released, the defendant presents a serious threat of inflicting great bodily harm on another or of violating [laws involving rape or criminal sexual penetration of a minor].”

“That’s a fairly high bar to say somebody is dangerous,” Chief Story commented, adding, “every competency case [in Las Cruces] for the past several years has been dismissed.” No defendant in recent years has been deemed “dangerous”.

What is law enforcements experience with this statewide and locally?

The chart presented is not comprehensive because not all municipal courts are represented.

Some of the statistics involve individuals who are defined as a “familiar face”. This is an individual with 4 or more criminal cases where competence was raised within a 12-month period from the earliest date competency was raised.

In the chart, above, each bar represents an individual with the quantity being the number of cases dismissed for that individual over a 5-year period. At the far left is the most extreme, where an individual had more than 100 cases against him/her in a 5-year period. This representation does not show all of the individuals, but they would continue to the right until there was only one case dismissed due to competency.

The above chart references the total number of cases involving a “familiar face” by yearly totals. In 2024, there were 1,417 cases involving a “familiar face”.

Of the statewide competency cases, “at least 95%… from 2017 to 2024 have been dismissed without any consequence or treatment provided.

In Las Cruces, at the Municipal Court level (not included in the figures above), 140 cases have been dismissed. These are not always violent cases, but there are only 9 individuals responsible for 125 of the 140 cases listed due to an inability to break the competency cycle of catch and release.

Pathways to solving the issues.

Chief Story presented the following recommendations to be considered by lawmakers currently enacting laws in Santa Fe:

Chief Story added to this list is some way of enforcing pre-trial detention. He provided many examples of individuals who are arrested over and over again. In 2024, there were 19 individuals who were arrested more than 10 times over the course of the year. It is a burden on law enforcement to address criminal behavior by arresting an individual who allegedly broke the law only to turn around the next day and arrest them again. Chief Story provided a list of examples in his presentation. One individual presented had 41 separate arrests in 2024, alone.

There are many more examples provided, and can be seen in the video, below. Also provided is an email list to the senators and representatives representing our broader community.

Tomorrow: Part IV: Juvenile Justice and Machine Guns