• Why New Mexico has one of the highest rates for killings by police

    From Animal problems@21:1/5 to All on Tue Dec 26 20:23:36 2023
    XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.law-enforcement, nm.general
    XPost: talk.politics.guns

    Last week, officers with the Farmington, N.M., Police Department responded
    to a call of a domestic violence incident. Police mistakenly arrived at
    the wrong house and shot and killed Robert Dotson after he opened his door armed with a handgun.

    New Mexico State Police are still investigating the incident, but the
    fatal shooting of the 52-year-old is just the latest example of police
    using lethal force against civilians in a state where this happens too frequently, critics say.

    Home to about 2.1 million people, New Mexico has one of the highest rates
    of police killings per capita in the country.

    Last year, 32 people — around 15 people per million — were killed by
    police in the state, according to data from MappingPoliceViolence.org. The project is part of Campaign Zero, a nonprofit focused on policing reform.

    New Mexico is second to Wyoming, with a population of about 581,000, where around 17 people per million were killed by police.

    "Who would have thought New Mexico would have one of the highest rates in
    the country?" said Howard Henderson, founding director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University. He's also a professor in
    the university's school of public affairs.

    In New Mexico, the rate of police using lethal force is even higher if a
    Black resident is involved. Black people total around 2.7% of the state's population, yet they are nearly four times more likely to be killed by
    police than white people. Years of high-profile cases of Black people
    killed by police across the country show this is an ongoing problem due in
    part to racial bias in policing.

    MappingPoliceViolence.org data reflects any incident where a law
    enforcement officer (off-duty or on-duty) applies lethal force resulting
    in a civilian being killed. This is whether the killing was considered "justified" or "unjustified" by law enforcement.

    Critics of police response in New Mexico say a bigger gun culture in the
    state compared to much of the rest of the country and lax police training
    play a factor in the high incidence of police killings.

    Police in the state's largest cities say they are making changes to alter
    how police use lethal force.

    The death in Farmington "and others like it make clear the urgent need for statewide police reform," Barron Jones with the ACLU New Mexico said in a
    news release.

    "We know that commonsense policies like requiring de-escalation and a high standard for when to use force keep all of us safer," Jones said. "Despite
    New Mexico having one of the highest, if not the highest, per capita rate
    of killings by police in the nation, robust legislation addressing police
    use of force did not pass this year. It doesn't have to be this way."

    Gun ownership and culture play a factor
    As of 2021, there were 122,968 federally registered firearms in the state, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The
    data is collected under the National Firearms Act, but this reflects only
    a subsection of weapons.

    Using data from the Rand Corp., CBS News reported that roughly 46% of
    adults in New Mexico had at least one gun at home in 2021. The state
    ranked 21st in a list of states and gun ownership. Texas, with more than 1 million gun licenses and roughly 46% of adults reporting they live in a
    home with guns, ranked first.

    Most of New Mexico "is rural, people rely on self protection" and there's
    more of a culture of hunting compared to the rest of the country, so high
    gun ownership makes sense, said Maryam Ahranjani, a law professor at the University of New Mexico.

    But this likely plays a role in higher levels of fatal use of force by
    police. Officers are more likely going to respond to a call assuming an individual may be armed, Ahranjani said.

    And in the case in Farmington, after the initial shooting of the victim, Dotson, his wife fired at officers from the doorway of the residence,
    according to the state police. She stopped once she realized the people
    outside her house were police.

    "It makes sense from a personal safety standpoint that officers want to
    keep themselves safe too," Ahranjani said.

    Local critics says there is a police training problem in New Mexico
    Because of the state's high gun ownership, Ahranjani said police should be trained in a way that prepares them to de-escalate situations rather than
    use lethal force.

    For many years, the Albuquerque Police Department, the law enforcement
    agency in the state's largest city, has had difficulties with its
    officers' use-of-force. It has been investigated by the U.S. Justice
    Department for its pattern of excessive force. Federal officials reached
    an agreement with the city to improve training and to keep tabs on its progress.

    https://www.npr.org/2023/04/14/1169480686/police-killings-new-mexico-gun- ownership

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