{"id":183230,"date":"2015-01-19T21:03:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T02:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/19\/hello-its-time-for-the-fbi-to-visit-and-start-breaking-heads\/"},"modified":"2015-01-19T21:03:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T02:03:00","slug":"hello-its-time-for-the-fbi-to-visit-and-start-breaking-heads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/01\/19\/hello-its-time-for-the-fbi-to-visit-and-start-breaking-heads\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello? It’s Time for the FBI to Visit and Start Breaking Heads!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I noted that the County DA had charged police with murder for shooting a homeless man<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, now the City Attorney and the Police are conspiring to exclude prosecutors from police involved shootings<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This week, Bernalillo County (N.M.) District Attorney Kari Brandenburg charged two Albuquerque police officers with murder<\/a> in the killing of homeless man James Boyd. The shooting was captured on video and widely covered in the national media. Brandenburg\u2019s decision comes on the heels of the controversial non-indictments in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, which sparked protests around the country. It didn\u2019t take long <\/a>for Albuquerque police and their supporters to react.<\/span><\/p>\n

 A top prosecutor for District Attorney Kari Brandenburg\u2019s office was shut out of a briefing after a fatal police shooting near San Mateo and Constitution NE on Tuesday evening, Brandenburg told KRQE News 13. <\/span>

<\/span> Police officials and others were gathering to discuss the most recent developments in the investigation a few hours after the shooting, Brandenburg said. Chief Deputy DA Sylvia Martinez attempted to join the briefing, but Deputy City Attorney Kathryn Levy would not let Martinez attend. <\/span>

<\/span> What Brandenburg said happened Tuesday evening would be an unprecedented move by city of Albuquerque officials, and it comes a day after Brandenburg charged two APD officers with murder in the March shooting death of homeless camper James Boyd. <\/span>

<\/span> Levy invoked the charges in barring Martinez from the briefing, according to Brandenburg. <\/span>

<\/span> \u201cSylvia was told that our office has a conflict of interest because we charged the officers,\u201d she said. <\/span>

<\/span> Reached by telephone for comment Tuesday evening, Levy, who has for years worked as APD\u2019s attorney<\/b><\/span>, refused to answer questions . . .<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prosecutors\u2019 presence at the scenes of police shootings and inside the investigatory briefings has been ubiquitous for decades here. In fact, the DA\u2019s participation in the investigations is memorialized in a written agreement with APD and other agencies signed in 2004.If true, this is really reprehensible behavior and an abdication of office on the part of both police and the deputy city attorney. It\u2019s also just the latest example of law enforcement officers and their supporters demonstrating incredible petulance in retaliation for public scrutiny or the rare attempt to hold rogue cops accountable for their actions.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n

This is deeply corrupt. <\/p>\n

What’s more it’s deeply evil.<\/p>\n

It is an attempt to create an absolute impunity for bad cops.<\/p>\n

The Feds need to be involved, and they need to kick some major league ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I noted that the County DA had charged police with murder for shooting a homeless man. Well, now the City Attorney and the Police are conspiring to exclude prosecutors from police involved shootings: This week, Bernalillo County (N.M.) District Attorney Kari Brandenburg charged two Albuquerque police officers with murder in the killing of homeless …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,969,1041],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-evil","category-law-enforcement-misconduct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}