Steve who?

It seems eerily Stalinesque, the way APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez has disappeared.  Three days ago he was banished from APS' innermost circle under mysterious circumstances and today you can't find him in the news anywhere.  Not even the Journal; not one inch.  It's like he evaporated.

I am told that a meeting is to be held this morning inside the administrative complex at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

The press, I'm assuming, are not invited to a meeting of the leadership of the APS and the entire Albuquerque Public School Police force.  The APS Police force is not a police "department" despite the deliberately deceptive pretense.  They are a publicly funded private police force that reports directly to and only to the leadership of the APS.  As an institution, it is accredited by no one, it is certificated by no one and it is accountable to no one except the leadership of the APS.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston "commissions" individual officers, he does not certify them as force or department.

He wrote some rules recently in an MOU with the leadership of the APS, in exchange for his willingness to commission their officers.

The leadership of the APS is as unconcerned about ignoring the MOU as Houston is unconcerned about the MOU being ignored.

He doesn't seem to mind for instance, that the officers he commissions are being employed in the capacity of a Praetorian Guard for the leadership of  the APS; ready willing and able to violate community members' constitutionally protected human rights, at the whim of a board member or senior administrator; just following orders, link.

I will concede that there are things these people might want to discuss in private.  I will even concede there are things they are legitimately entitled to discuss in private.

But that's not where the leadership of the APS draws the line on privacy.  They draw the line at "everything"; everything is "private".  Everything is a "personnel" issue.

APS Supt Winston Brooks,  APS COO Brad Winter and APS Police Chief  Steve Tellez testified in deposition and under oath that, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars hardening the castle keep on Uptown Blvd.  Security cameras everywhere, monitored 24/7, controlled access and Kevlar ballistic shields to protect them.

Its all to keep people out.  In especially it is to keep people out if those people want to hold them personally accountable for their misconduct and incompetence.

They really don't want interest holders to know what they're doing in there; anymore than they want them to know what they've done in there.

They've spent untold millions in there and cannot (because the records are missing or were never created) or will not (because the record is of abuse) produce the records of their spending.

What have the twin towers cost taxpayers - precisely?

APS Chief Operations Officer Brad Winter flat out refuses to produce a candid, forthright and honest accounting of spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

Spending at 6400 Uptown Blvd is a scandal in its own right.

The media stopped reporting on the current scandal in the leadership of the APS.

I suspect it is because the leadership of the APS is stonewalling them and they don't want to look ineffectual when have to report that APS is stonewalling them and they're powerless to do anything about it.

Today was the day, by the way, when the Journal should have reported to readers that the leadership of the APS is hiding public records from them; records of findings of investigations into felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators, link.

They missed the deadline.  Journal Managing Editor Kent Walz is unwilling apparently, to expose honest to God corruption in the leadership of the APS.

He and his equivalents at KRQE, KOAT and KOB TV.

What an outrage.




photos Mark Bralley
Walz ched macquigg