New Mexico considers mandate for police body cameras

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico state legislators began deliberations Monday on increasing police accountability by requiring body cameras for state and local law enforcement officers.

The Democrat-led House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on the Senate-approved reforms — supported by the governor — that would mandate cameras for all state and local law enforcement officers with the exception of tribal police.

Video must be archived by police agencies for 120 days, under the bill. Police agencies that flout the camera requirement could be sued for withholding evidence.

The bill also includes new sanctions for police convicted for unlawful use of force or failure to stop excessive force by colleagues -- permanently revoking police certification unless the conviction is pardoned by the governor.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has urged the Legislature to seize upon the momentum of demonstrations set off by George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police to enact policing reforms including mandatory body-worn cameras for police.

Presenting the bill on the House floor, Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena of Mesilla said police transparency reforms are urgently needed.

“Our communities have a right to feel safe in their lives, they deserve to live with respect and dignity," Lara Cadena said. “We have our own stories about encounters (with police) that have gone wrong and ended with death.”

Lara Cadena said that 26 out of 33 county sheriff's departments already use body cameras. Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales, elected by New Mexico’s largest county that encircles Albuquerque, has long expressed opposition to body cameras.

House Republicans rallied against the proposed legislation as hastily written and financially burdensome for police agencies that don't use cameras.

“As you increase the cost of those police officers, cities and counties are going to have to make the decision: Do we raise taxes or do we cut the number of police officers on the street,” said Republican House Minority Leader James Townsend of Artesia.

Bill sponsor Sen. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces, highlighted the widespread use of body cameras in major cities and recent revelations about police brutality, in an impassioned floor speech on Friday.

Cervantes also invoked the death of Antonio Valenzuela at the hands of Las Cruces police officers in a video-recorded encounter in February that has led to charge of involuntary manslaughter against one officer.

The Albuquerque Police Department, the largest in the state, has been using cameras for years as it implements reforms under a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department. Federal authorities in 2014 issued a scathing report in response to a series of deadly police shootings in the city that pointed to patterns of excessive force, constitutional violations and a lack of training and oversight of its officers.

The House declined to vote on Senate-approved bill aimed at identifying and uprooting institutionalized racism in state government. That doomed the proposal to document the ethnic and racial demographics of agency workforces and provide training to avoid institutional racism.

Lawmakers are likely to send the governor an economic recovery bill that would offer up to $500 million in low-interest loans to small businesses and local governments.

The loans would flow from the state's multibillion-dollar severance tax permanent fund.