APS Police Force to arrest "sightseers"

Anyone who goes to the school board meeting next Wednesday, and who has a few extra minutes on their hands, might want to ride the elevators  to the top floor, there to peek through a few windows to see how they spent the last $850K that voters entrusted to the stewardship of the leadership of the APS.

Why aren't taxpayers curious about what their $850K bought?

They will not be allowed.  They will not be allowed past the first floor restrooms.

Their adventure will be ended by members of police force that operates out of the castle keep at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

They are certified police officers carrying commission cards from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department.  They wear uniforms and badges of authority; they carry handcuffs, and chemical mace, and guns.

Most of them are good and decent people just trying to do a good job.

Their job is complicated by the fact that the leadership of the APS police force reports directly to the administration of the APS, and only to the leadership of the APS.  As a "police force" they remain uncertificated, uncertified and unaccredited by any body outside the leadership of the APS.  They are a publicly funded private police force; a Praetorian Guard.

Worse still, they admit that they will follow any administrator or school board member's order to remove citizens from public meetings.  Under law, they would have to actually witness someone breaking the law before the could arrest and remove them.  Under APS policy and practice, if a board members says,

I don't like that photo journalist taking my photograph from any distance and, I want you to throw him out of this public meeting, and in fact, off APS premises.

an APS police officer follow that order; arrest* and eject that photo journalist.
*For the purposes of this discussion, arrest means;

the using the power and authority of governmental
and implied force if necessary, to deny personal liberty;
free exercise of Constitutionally protected human rights.

APS police officers will continue to function as the board and superintendent's personal guard until they are disallowed by school board resolve, or as the proximate result of a complaint filed in federal court by the photo journalist in question, Mark Bralley, in more cost-is-no-object legal defenses being mounted in litigation in federal court.

APS police officers will be just following their orders when they
prevent taxpayers from riding an elevator they paid for, to the top floor
of a building they paid for, to peek through the windows at the
$850K remodel they just paid for.  What's wrong with this picture?

photos Mark Bralley