City Councilors
You already received a copy of this 6/15 e-mail below from a close friend of the Hinz family and I hope you are now as concerned as are we.
I had expected my Councilor Trudy Jones to be concerned-but really am not surprised with her silence, as her loyalty is once again clearly to Mayor Berry and not to us-her supposed District 8 constituents. I plan to discuss this killing at the Council meeting Monday night and hope more concerned citizens will show up expressing their outrage and call for changes. Seemingly showing a lack of leadership, Mayor Berry has been silent on this killing thus far hoping it will somehow go away with the blessing of the Police Oversight Commission and some help from his TV, radio and printed media friends. The review of this by the Police Oversight Commission will be a sham/cover-up-as APD well knows. Mayor Berry has likely seen the APD videotape of the incident-killing but won’t have it released to the media or public. You should ask to see it.
It’s clear that the administration is now in damage control to try to lump Chris’ killing into all of the other shootings-some justified. They expect the media to support them- rather than the citizens of this City in their reporting-something that has seemingly been their slant thus far. The administration recently told Channel 7 reporter Ilana Gold that Chris had a “criminal record” so apparently viewers are to conclude he deserved to die. TV-7 anchor Shelly Ribando repeated that “criminal record” City claim as well as the bogus assertion that many EANA neighbors agreed with how APD handled it. I doubt that either is the case. Just what is Chris’ “criminal record?” Just who agreed?
Today’s Journal article quoting Chief Schulz and Darren White tries to somehow paint the APD shooters as the victims saying that “officer-involved shootings have an effect on officers and their families.” What about the effect they have on the victim and their families? Chief Shultz claims that “the last thing they want to do is take someone’s life.” Really? Tell that to Chris’ daughter Krystal who now has no dad or mom. What about the traumatizing effect on her? What about the effect on the families of the other people wrongly killed by APD?
The e-mail below from neighbor Angela Durham speaks for itself. This was NOT a justified killing-plain and simple and is symptomatic of the apparent freedom APD officers have to take innocent lives without any fear of accountability for their actions-with the blue code of silence they expect. A badge does NOT give them a license to kill indiscriminately! This anger with the Hinz killing voiced by many is not against the dedicated police officers but with the leadership or lack thereof-starting with the still-silent Mayor Berry to Darren White to APD Chief Schultz, all of whom have seemingly embraced this culture of lethal rather than non-lethal force. You note that the front page article in today’s Albuquerque Journal states that Chris now only ALLEGEDLY threatened officers. The APD videotape will likely reveal that there was no threat and this matter could have been resolved without his death. As Angela’s e-mail below says, “the rifle was not cocked to shoot nor did he have elevated to shoot.” Demand that APD release their videotape! I also wish TV 4 would have played more of my interview with their reporter yesterday to put my “gutless” comment broadcasted last night into context. Sometimes the easy way out/shoot to kill rather than take non-lethal action, is gutless. The victims here are NOT the APD officer shooters and their families!
Please get involved. You should be as outraged with this shooting as am I and not choose look the other way and thus perpetuate this seemingly “shoot-first” culture.
The blame should be placed at the very top-not with the shooters who were just following orders-their misguided training in such matters.
Respectfully,
Silvio
EANA
296 3241
I hope the Journal asks Ms. Durham if they could print/summarize the contents of her e-mail below as an OpEd or letter.
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