Will APS' Interim Chief investigate himself - save us a few bucks?

KOAT TV reported that Robert Caswell Investigations has been hired to investigate APS Police Chief Steve Tellez alleged misconduct.

While Tellez is on paid leave, Deputy Chief of Police Steve Gallegos is in charge.

I've been told that Steve Gallegos works for RCI.

RCI could save taxpayers a lot of money by just having Gallegos investigate Tellez.  And while he's at it, he could investigate what it was he was doing instead of exposing Tellez.

Damned be the appearance of a conflict of interests.

It's going to have to be proved to me that Steve Gallegos doesn't have guilty knowledge regarding Steve Tellez' conduct.  If he doesn't, he's incompetent.

Steve Gallegos led APS' criminal self-investigation in 2007 when Tellez was Gil Lovato's Deputy Chief.  Tellez was Chief while his investigators should have been exposing Tellez' guilty knowledge or incompetence.

Gallegos' findings and the findings of Caswell I have never been published despite the commitment of the leadership of the APS to do just that, and despite requests made under the NM Inspection of Public Records Act.

APS Executive Director of Human Resources Andra Trybus was in charge at the time of the Lovato/Tellez scandal, testified under oath that the APS police never investigated allegations of their own criminal misconduct despite overwhelming evidence that they did, and then hid what they found.

APS lawyer Art Melendres

"When the truth gets out, there won't be a single senior APS administrator left standing" - Sam Bregman, according to APS Chief Counsel Art Melendres, according to the Journal.

It appears he might well have been right.




photo Mark Bralley
Gallegos by ched macquigg