APS' new top cop; can he shoot straight?

Steve Gallegos, at El Dorado HS link

APS' top cop Steven Gallegos, the guy in charge of the cover up of the cover up of felony criminal misconduct involving senior APS administrators and the leadership of their publicly funded private police force, is has trouble "qualifying".

The "traditional media" have known about the problem since the 2nd, link, and could have found the records more easily than I.  They apparently chose to not ask.

Qualifying for this post means; able to demonstrate on a regular basis, that he can shoot the weapon he carries into schools.

The records are sketchy. Strike that.  The available records are sketchy.  This is a volume of records but they're given out one at a time.  The one person in the Sheriff's Department who could have produced a few more records or answered a few questions about qualifications, was not available at the time of our scheduled appointment.

An appointment is required, because an apparently otherwise highly capable administrative assistant was paid by taxpayers to watch us inspect each record.  In order to inspect and or copy public records, public records that could have and should have been emailed to me, we had to drive down town, deal with dysfunctional parking meters, surrender our ids and be personally escorted to a conference room where we all sat around the end of an aircraft carrier sized table. It took us a couple of hours.  In fairness, our scanner was painfully slow.  In fairness, the Sheriff's high(er) speed scanner was available from the get go.  Rather than use it, we all sat around and chatted for a man hour.

Again, this all could have been done with a couple of key strokes, and probably would have if I was one of the traditional press and if I were looking for evidence of public corruption and incompetence in the leadership of the APS and in particular, the leadership of its Praetorian guard..

The records amount to shooting scores for every member of the APS Police force.  Each is apparently required to qualify 4 times a year.  Gallegos record is incomplete.  So is former APS Chief of Police and shootist Steve Tellez'.

What the standards are and what the penalties for failing to meet standards are; they are obviously different depending on who you know.

It helps a lot if you know the Bernalillo County Sheriff Dan Houston.

Houston is sitting on a criminal investigation of Steve Tellez while Tellez' boss and fellow republican APS COO Brad Winter slips off into retirement with honors and before the shit hits the fan.  It would help Houston's own re-election aspirations intact if the findings are found after the election.

This is why police departments fall into disrepair;
the abject failure of their "leadership" to hold themselves accountable, actually and honestly accountable the to the standards they establish, expect and enforce on everybody but themselves.

This isn't just true in police departments, it is true in every aspect of government.  There is no actual honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within their public service.

The difficulty in holding powerful politicians and public servants accountable for their conduct and competence, is personified in public information officers.  Their job is to obfuscate the production of damning evidence against their boss or any of their bosses friends.

Their job is to obfuscate the production of damning evidence against their boss or any of their bosses friends.

If I wrote it three times, would it help?

Their manifest first loyalty is to the politician or public servant they work under; not to "the people" and not to their trust and their treasure.  Their real priority could not be clearer if it were tattooed on their foreheads.

APD PIO Janet Blair

The Albuquerque Police Department has just solved a lot of their problems by hiring someone to help solve their problems by hiding the evidence of them.

They will pay her $95K; more than we pay cops; more than we pay teachers, more than we pay a social workers; ...

There is no legitimate agenda that does not move forward on the day that the truth about the spending of public power and resources becomes as easily accessible as it ever will be.

There is no accountability in the absence of access to the truth.

All reform rests upon a first and fundamental reform; truth telling.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the  
ethically redacted truth.

If that standard is too high, then at the very least;

the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
"legally" redacted truth.

A distant second but far better than what we have now;
the politically redacted truth.




Blair and Houston photos Mark Bralley