APS ignoring MOU with the BCSO

APS and the Bernalillo County Sheriff  Dan Houston are signatories on a Memorandum of Understanding.  Their understanding, link, includes an understanding about the reporting of criminal misconduct.

There is evidence that the "understanding" the Sheriff thought they shared, is not shared at all.

There is a philosophical difference of opinion between the Sheriff and APS' Chief of Police Steve Tellez, around the handling of students who commit crimes.

The kids arrested by APD and the Sheriff's Deputies face the criminal justice system and create statistics.  Catch and release is the SOP for the APS Police Force.

Students who have broken the law see an "administrative solution"; a solution that co-incidentally creates no record of criminal misconduct.  A solution that co-incidentally makes the administrator who makes that decision look like s/he's running a crime free school.

Tellez solution is to do it his way; which is to say APS COO Brad Winter's way; which is to say APS Supt Winston Brooks' way; which is to say the Board's way.

APS Police Chief Steve Tellez testified about what happens to students depending on who arrests them; (spelling corrections in parentheses)

3  A. Well, this is where the sheriffs
4  department and our department differ. In their SOP
5  it states, if there is a crime, then the person
6  committing the (crime) will be arrested. And we don't
7  always arrest the people that commit (crimes). We deal
8  with students, and the students, a lot of (time) we
9  don't need to make a physical arrest. In our
10 department, a physical arrest is a last resort.
11 So we -- a lot of (times) we do a book and
12 release, where the student isn't physically (arrested).
13 The student is -- paperwork is done, and the student
14 is released to their parents.
15 There is a lot of these sections that are
16 in the MOU, but the sheriffs department doesn't
17 comply with them. 

County Sheriff sez, say what?




photos Mark Bralley