Albuquerque city council meets after weekend police shooting

The Albuquerque City Council gathered Thursday in a special session with an agenda that included discussion of overhauling the process used to hire the police chief.

One proposal discussed would make the police chief an elected office. Another would require the city council to approve the mayor’s selection. Under the current system, the mayor selects the police chief, which is what Mayor Richard Berry did in February when he hired Gorden Eden to fix the troubled department. 

The council did not take any final action Thursday, and the discussion is expected to continue. Council President Ken Sanchez said some version of the proposals would likely come before voters this fall.

It is a heated topic in Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city. APD officers have been involved 39 shootings, 23 of them fatal, since 2010. There’s no national record of how many times police departments throughout the United States use deadly force, but according to Micah McCoy with the ACLU of New Mexico, Albuquerque’s rate of deadly force rivals that of New York City. New York City is 15 times larger by population than Albuquerque.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched in a probe in November 2012, when its Civil Rights Division and New Mexico federal Attorney's Office. The result was a harshly critical report issued in April. It said that Albuquerque police "too frequently" use excessive force against people who pose a minimal threat, and that officers who do so are in breach of the Constitution.

The report came out just weeks after police in Albuquerque fatally shot James Boyd, a 38-year-old homeless man armed with a knife, on March 16.

Boyd's death — captured on video and widely circulated on the Internet — was the Albuquerque Police Department's second fatal shooting in two weeks. It prompted a demonstration by hundreds of people who blocked traffic in the city on March 30.

Since then protests have continued, as have the deaths. Thursday’s council meeting came five days after Armand Martin, was killed after threatening his family. Deputy Chief Eric Garcia stressed that officers patiently negotiated with suspect Armand Martin and attempted to de-escalate the situation but had no other choice when he exited his home with handguns.

On Monday, demonstrators took over the regularly scheduled council meeting, chanting for the ouster of the police chief, shouting at council members and causing so much disruption that the panel's president adjourned the meeting. Protesters also tried to serve a "people's arrest warrant" on Eden.

On Thursday, the council set special rules for the meeting that included that no signs, props or any other campaign material. Security escorted one man out of the chambers who signed up to speak on a minimum wage proposal but instead stood at the podium without saying a word. The crowd of about 200 responded with applause as he was led outside.

Al Jazeera and wire services

Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Albuquerque is the capital of New Mexico. Santa Fe is the capital of the state.