All cops aren’t bad, but they must be better

\When a group of people blocked a downtown Las Cruces street in 2017 to protest federal immigration raids, the police chief showed up to address the situation.

The late Jaime Montoya, who was chief at the time, kneeled next to the demonstration’s lead organizer, Sarah Silva (who is my spouse), while she and others sat in a line across Main Street. He listened to the group’s concerns and shared what local police could and could not do about the Trump Administration’s actions.

Then the chief asked protesters to clear the street. They did.

“I think it’s commendable, what they’re doing,” Montoya told journalists after the protest had ended. “They’re speaking up for the rights of people who can’t speak for themselves.”

Montoya disproved the narrative that day that all cops are bad — or, as some say, bastards.

As a former crime reporter and the son of a retired law enforcement officer, my experience is that most police officers are decent folks who want to serve people in jobs that also let them provide for their families.

But policing in the United States is a terribly flawed profession rooted in protecting property over people and upholding slavery. Too many who work these jobs join a conditioned culture that, at its worst, enforces the most brutal and oppressive impulses of the majority at the expense of freedom and safety.

Under the new Trump regime, many nameless, faceless, lawless thugs claiming to be federal law enforcement agents are roaming our streets to round up — and sometimes rough up — immigrants, citizens and elected officials.

We must watchdog our local and state police agencies to guard our communities against an expansion of the overreach we’re seeing from the feds.

An insufficient approach

Eight years after Montoya met with Sarah on the pavement, we’re again protesting Trump’s immigration raids. Las Cruces has a new police chief, Jeremy Story. And thus far, the police department’s approach is lacking.

People gathered to protest authoritarianism in Las Cruces twice during the second weekend in June. A Friday-evening demonstration against the immigration raids in Los Angeles and around the nation preceded the massive “No Kings” protest on Saturday.

Las Cruces doesn’t require permits to protest. But because the organizers of Saturday’s demonstration obtained a permit, police reached out to them and did some advance work to ensure the protest was peaceful and protected.

The organizers of Friday’s protest didn’t seek a permit. They promoted their plans on social media and police knew it was happening. Because of threats that had been made against people planning to protest on Saturday, LCPD placed at least two officers on nearby roofs and balconies — including at the public library — to watch Friday’s protest through scoped rifles.

That didn’t happen during Saturday’s protest.

I won’t share a link to the authoritarianism-promoting website run by state Rep. John Block where at least some of the threats were posted. But here’s a sample of the comments directed at protesters:

“Lock and load. Time to end this Marxist insanity.”

“I’ll be sure to be carrying that day – and plenty of extra mags.”

“I’ll be attending the rally in Las Cruces. Anyone know where I can buy bear spray and a confederate flag before Saturday?”

Any of these threats could have been made by someone with intent and means. I’m glad LCPD took them seriously.

Sometimes police should watch protests and other events from high vantage points. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that.

My concern is that police didn’t give the demonstrators who attended the first protest on that weekend in June a heads-up about the rifles that would be pointed at them, apparently because that group of protesters has a particularly combative attitude toward cops.

The result is that a group of folks who gathered to protest masked law enforcement agents disappearing people off our streets — folks who are terrified of police overreach, who mustered up the courage to show up publicly to protest — were met with cops pointing scoped rifles in their direction without warning.

This is unacceptable.

Story acknowledged his department’s failure during a City Council meeting three days after the protest. After citizens shared their outrage with councilors, the chief said officers “should not have been present with their rifles in the way that they were” because it created “a lot of division that’s not necessary.”

That’s a decent start. But it isn’t enough.

Putting their lives at risk

Policing has become a more insular profession since I first worked the crime beat 25 years ago. Many officers feel persecuted to the point that agencies have a difficult time filling vacancies.

That’s in part because we’re holding more officers accountable when they abuse their jobs. That’s a good thing, though the social media critique directed at police is relentless, harsh, and too often black-and-white.

In Las Cruces, officers are also dealing with the 2024 homicide of the first LCPD officer to be murdered on the job in the department’s history, and the conviction, which is being appealed, of another officer in the 2022 death of a citizen.

Still, the challenges police officers face are not comparable to what protesters experience on the streets today, starting with the constant threat of violence from MAGA cultists — people like the pardoned Jan. 6 rioters. The comments on Block’s website demonstrate that.

There’s been actual violence against protesters. A Neo-Nazi ran over and killed one person and injured dozens of others at a protest in Virginia in 2017. In San Francisco and Virginia, motorists were charged with running down demonstrators during the No Kings protests last month.

In New Mexico, MAGA supporters have twice shot folks who were demonstrating against statues glorifying Spanish colonizer Juan de Oñate — in Albuquerque in 2020 and near Española in 2023.

Police have also been violent, both while detaining immigrants and dealing with protesters. One viral video shows federal agents beating a gardener after he ran from them while carrying a weed whacker.

Several journalists were injured by cops while covering protests in Los Angeles in June. Another viral video shows a Los Angeles police officer shooting a reporter with a rubber bullet without provocation.

At least five elected officials nationwide have been arrested, detained or confronted by law enforcement, four of them while exercising their First Amendment rights.

Unlike cops, many of these citizens aren’t trained to handle such a crisis. They’re not wearing body armor. They’re not carrying firearms. Protesters are literally putting their lives at risk to stand up to the federal government’s militarized goon squad.

Contrasting approaches

Story, a Republican, reiterated his commitment at the City Council meeting to protecting folks, “even people who dehumanize police officers and say all cops are bastards.”

That might sound like a remarkable statement, but it’s not. Any good police officer commits to protecting everyone.

The best police officers show up with curiosity and empathy. They work to form relationships with and understand all citizens — even those who make their jobs more difficult. That’s what builds a safer community in the long run.

Montoya could have arrested Sarah and the other protesters who shut down Main Street in 2017. They were creating a traffic hazard that required police intervention to keep protesters and motorists safe.

But Montoya’s commitment went deeper than that. He knew and had met with the people who were protesting. He understood their motives. He had relationships with them.

Contrast that with what Story said at the City Council meeting when he explained why police watched one protest through scoped rifles but not the other.

“It’s because we had a different relationship with the organizers that allowed us to have a slightly different response,” Story said. He added that many of the people who showed up to the Council meeting to express outrage about the rifles “are people who despise us and probably will regardless of what we do.”

He concluded his explanation by saying, “We’ll be there for them when they call, and we’ll still respond and we’ll still protect them regardless of their views.”

What could have happened

Clearly, there’s no relationship there like Montoya had with the protesters in 2017. Story doesn’t sound interested in building one, either.

How hard would it have been for the chief, or any officer, to show up at the Friday protest in June, which was literally across the street from the police station, to introduce himself and deliver a message? Something like this:

“Hey, we’re taking these violent, online threats seriously, and we’re worried about you. So we’re going to have a couple of officers stationed up high to watch things. They have rifles and will be looking through their scopes. They’re not here to shoot you. They’re here to keep an eye out for anyone who might intend to do you harm. Now I’m going to get out of your way and let you exercise your constitutional right to protest. Here’s my card. Call if you need us. Keep it peaceful and we’ll keep it safe.”

What Story said at the Council meeting implies that building a relationship is the protesters’ responsibility. It’s not. The protesters have every reason to be suspicious of cops, especially now.

The responsibility is on the government employees paid with our tax dollars and charged with protecting and serving all of us.

LCPD talks a lot about community engagement. Recently the department has held or participated in events to feed kids, fish with community members, and clean up El Paseo Road.

These are all great. But real engagement means working to be in relationship with everyone — even folks who hate cops.

Hold officers to this standard

To do the mental gymnastics to roam communities like a goon squad, federal agents have to dehumanize the people they’re after and those protesting their actions. I want to urge our local and state police officers to not follow their federal counterparts down this path. Double down on community and empathy, not procedure and force.

I want to urge citizens and elected officials in Las Cruces and throughout New Mexico to hold our law enforcement officers to this standard.

And I want to urge our police officers to think about how their actions appear to citizens in the context of the lawlessness of their federal counterparts. They have an opportunity to act in ways that earn trust, rather than suspicion.

I don’t believe Story is a bastard. He earned my respect with his handling of the aftermath of the Young Park shooting. He’s a good police officer.

I know many cops; the vast majority are not bastards. But social media is full of videos right now of federal agents — and the LAPD — acting like bastards.

In New Mexico, our local and state police need to demonstrate that they won’t follow the feds down that path.