Gathering in the Aftermath: Heart to Heart with Mary Shoemaker and Patty Shure

All photos (except for the last) by Dinah Vargas

"We knew we had a hurting kid," said Patty Shure adoptive mother of 16-year-old Victor Villalpando, the youngest victim of New Mexico police violence in the very bloody year of 2014. "We were on it!" added Mary Shoemaker, Victor's other adoptive mother, explaining that they were attentive to their son's tendency to depression, his confusion about his personal edges, and uncertainty about who he was in a general sense. In fact the very day before Victor was shot in the street by Española cop Jeremy Apodaca, the moms had been assured by a psychologist with whom they had consulted that things weren't so bad, that Victor did not need to be placed in the intensive out-patient program they'd been actively considering for him.


Our topic was self-recrimination, and there was plenty to go around.


Victor had wanted to go visit his birth grandparents that week, but his mothers wanted him to finish his online classes for the 9th grade. "We put roadblocks in his way; as his mothers we set boundaries for him," Mary explained. "He hated that." As a compromise he was allowed to study by day and spend Saturday night at his friend's house in Española. The following morning, Sunday, June 8th, he told his friend he was going out for a walk, a walk from which he never returned.

Shure and Shoemaker reject the narrative as it's told by the police and repeated uncritically in the media: the facile, and in this case particularly baseless, "suicide by cop" theory one hears so often. Their lawyers, who have filed a tort claim on their behalf (no lawsuit is currently planned), have examined the surveillance video that captured Apodaca's 15-second encounter with their boy, other specialists too. "It gets grainy, there's no audio, there were no lapel cameras. Inconclusive, " Mary says. But something wells up in Patty. "I was trained to be a nice girl. For a year I've been saying Victor's death, when Victor was killed. But now I say our boy was murdered," Patty says. "Murdered by someone who thought he was a threat."


Though Victor was shot down in Española, the family resides in El Rito, a rural village located 18 miles to the north. "I wish we had had a chance to teach him not to mess with the cops," Patty said. "My immediate regret was that. He was raised by us inside our sense of white privilege, with no street smarts, out in the country where there are no police. In those ways he wasn't savvy, and I...I didn't know to teach him that.

"It's part of this journey," Patty explains. "The relentless 'What else could I have done?' And then you turn your attention somewhere else. Because you have to."

The couple, who were married in California, have three other children, one by birth and two other adoptees. They received Vic, as they sometimes call him, from the New Mexico Children Youth & Family Department just after he was born. "He was always of two worlds," Mary said, and Patty elaborated. "His birth mother, who died two years ago from a heroin overdose, went into early labor as a result of a drunk driving accident. She was airlifted to UNM hospital, and told me that she was paddled back to life three times en route. As a newborn Victor had cocaine and THC in his bloodstream; the nurses said he was going through withdrawal. That was the soup in which he was formed."


The narcotics and alcohol affected him in various ways. On one hand he was something of a motor skills prodigy. "When he was still two," Mary remembered, "he was already riding a two-wheeler. He convinced an adult to take off his training wheels and he was cycling around the churchyard. But he was slower to talk than our other children, and definitely slower to potty-train."


"Socially, he was younger than his age," Patty added. "And he was remarkably empathic and kind. His pre-natal life showed up in unexpected ways. He was concerned for the panhandlers we'd see in Española, who are often addicts. He'd say, Mom, that guy is still there, what can we do? We had endless conversations about how to support a person's humanity without supporting his illnesses. Finally I got him to accept, to agree, that he would not give them his lunch money every single day. But I always had to have some Taco Bell gift cards on hand, and we'd give those out. I have them still, a few, in my wallet. That's Victor."

"He took everybody's pain," Mary said. Once a family friend perished at their dinner table, shockingly dying during the meal from a massive heart attack. While the arrangements were being made Victor, though just a boy, stayed with the body the entire time. "He wouldn't leave his side," Patty recalled. "Another time, I'd hurt my foot and was bedridden for a while. Victor nursed me. Before he'd go to elementary school he'd look in on me. What can I get for you, mom? Do you need anything?"

"Victor was a little kid, with a big presence," Patty said. "We've lived here for a long time. Mary's retired now but she taught for 26 years, and I've been involved as a social worker. Over the years we've met a lot of people. But since his death, we've realized that he had more connections than the two of us together. If there's solace to be found, it's there, that we're not the only ones missing him. Everyone in his life has similar feelings—how could we have helped him more? That's a part of losing someone in this way, violently in the streets."

For months Mary and Patty went to the grave site every single day. They'd find toys or other tokens there, left by the children to whom their son had taught dance and gymnastics at Moving Arts Española. One child left a rosary from his first holy communion. Seed balls and heart-shaped rocks are not uncommon; colorful flowers crafted from duct tape grace his resting place, and homemade carved crosses have appeared from strangers who are simply moved by the family's unbearable loss. One day they plan to cover the mound where he rests in a mosaic of heart-shaped rocks. For now they re-mound the dirt when it loses shape from erosion, or tidy up the various memorial tributes when they're knocked over by the wind and rain.


"When they told us in the hospital they wouldn't be able to save him, I started to keen," Mary said."I didn't know the word keening before I did it. For the longest time, I had to make myself get up in the morning. I wanted to hide. People stayed with us after the funeral. It was a good thing they did: they reminded us to breathe, they made us eat. I've lost ten pounds this year, which I find astounding. I cry many times a day. I notice how it makes my body feel, I acknowledge the sorrow. But lately that's side-by-side with joy, seeing the sunset again."

Patty began grief counseling about a month ago; it's helping she feels. "It took me so long to get into counseling. I have moments of more acceptance and then there are times when I'm just No, no, no! And I really question why I have to stay here on this earth without him? I don't know the answer, but I feel that I do."

Physically, she has odd aches and pains, bouts of sleeplessness. There are challenges with stress-related activities. She finds herself over-reacting at times to situations that before their terrible loss simply would not have ruffled her. At first working was out of the question, but she's come back in stages. She used up all her leave, co-workers generously donated theirs, and she was away for a full month. Then she returned on a part-time basis, and though she's now back full-time she no longer engages in direct service to kids and their families. Her role now is primarily administrative. She tells herself that someone who cares has to do that job too, even with its bureaucratic frustrations.

And they have fears, terrible, terrible fears. Mary's concerned about what she calls the "out-there kids," all the other kids like Victor, who maybe "take up too much space." She doesn't want a single other one dead, "pain in the butts that they are." About the police, Mary has felt Fuck you, fuck you! "But I change that tape, I've played around with it. Now I say 'peace on your journey.' I say it, but I've lived in terror that I'd be pulled over, and especially by Apodaca. Sometimes I'd see him, or think it was him. If that happened... I don't think I could control it."


In April, she did get pulled over for driving slightly over the speed limit. But it was by a San Juan tribal officer, and luckily he was gentle in his demeanor. "When I went to court I said to the judge, Please thank the officer. I lived in fear that if I was pulled over, I'd end up in jail."


But Mary's worst fear is for her other children. "I worry that something just as bad could happen to them."

One of the ways Mary copes with her anguished anxiety is to do the work to bring the change—"here, or even more far-reaching"—we all so desperately want: an end to police violence against the populace. Last Monday she sent off an information packet to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, at President Obama's request. It included the autopsy report and other official documents filled with wrenching details: like Eric Garner in New York City, Victor's last words too were: "You're hurting me, I can't breathe."

The reform agenda is mighty: both she and Patty advocate jury trials not grand juries when an officer is involved in a shooting "so that the victim's voice is represented too." Secondly, the officers should be interviewed promptly (not 12 days later when they've all had ample opportunity to sync up their stories) and by a completely independent agency, not the New Mexico State Police who are all bound up together with the local departments. Mary and Patty want the lapel cameras turned on and with audio, so we can hear the conversation. (If only we knew what was said to Victor that made him turn his back on the officers, was it something shaming? Or did one of them say they were going to contact his parents? Did he turn back and offer them his cell phone, and was he shot for being helpful?)

They're also, as we all should be, interested in the conversation about disarming the police altogether. "How else," Mary asks, "are we going to break the cycle of fear?" She'll be discussing these and other ideas on the radio tomorrow at noon (KUNM) along with representatives from New Mexicans for Gun Safety.


Other proposals have to do with increased mental health policing and providing real alternatives to calling 911 in the first place, such as another three-digit hotline number that could bring real help. They want revisions to police training curriculum that would lead to a shift away from the focus on warrior cops shooting to kill. "But," Mary reminds us, "none of that will bring my kid back." And our thoughts return to Victor on that Sunday morning last June: why didn't they knock him down, tase him, shoot him in the leg, talk to him for more than 15 seconds?!

Would you ever call 911 again for any reason I ask Patty and Mary, to which they reply in unison: NEVER!

A powerful statement, especially from Patty who works on behalf of some really distressed families and and is aware of the array of dangerous possibilities. "Safety," she so wisely says, "is in your skills."

Patty Shure and Mary Shoemaker have been united in love and family for three decades, but they are fighting to hold onto their relationship. The truth is that many families don't stay intact after this kind of traumatic loss. Mary says they have to keep their family together for their 13-year-old daughter, and that they're giving each other a lot of space. Apodoca's bullet has ripped them apart, but says Mary, "It's gotta make us stronger. It's gotta."


Patty explains: "We're both in deep grief. It's hard to survive myself, and then to nurture someone else...I have to remind myself when I see Mary weeping, in a matter of seconds my own sorrow can be activated, that it could be me in the next moment feeling destroyed."


And too, Patty explained, for over 25 years they've led a quiet life, working in community, raising their children. But now people—strangers—some less than tactful, feel free to approach them and say things to them, sometimes terrible things. "Oh, that was your son. Well, what did he think would happen?" Mary added too that Victor's slaying has outed them as lesbians in a small rural town. One woman recently told them she'd always thought they were sisters (though they look nothing alike). The whole ordeal has propelled them into the public light, a place they never wanted to be.

Mary confessed: "We had a hard time getting ourselves to the memorial service for the anniversary. We just wanted to be with family. But it was organized by community members who also love our boy. So we go. And then we see him in the mural, twenty feet tall, planting seeds, exuding life. Community—that's what his death has done—it's strengthened our community."

"I wake up in the morning, and I have to remember that he's no longer here," Patty said. "But whatever your beliefs, he's accessible to me: I talk to him. A lot. When Beau Biden died, I said, Hey, Vic, did you welcome him? And then I had to remember that Vic wouldn't have given a crap about a politician... So then I switched it up and asked him: Hey, Vic. Is Tupac dead, or not?

"And I heard his laughter, howling. But he didn't answer."

The Obscenity of Scott Greenwood and Tom Streicher: (Yet Another) Scandal in Alburquerque

"We're not starving, we're just hungry..."

Of all people in the United States these two characters from the Buckeye State, Scott Greenwood and Tom Streicher, somehow got themselves hired in Albuquerque at $350 per hour plus expenses. (Just look at them, it's ludicrous! If we're making a nasty porno, at least give us some eye candy!) Their billings, already in the six figures, were "earned" presiding over the cut and paste job that is the DOJ Consent Decree on unconstitutional policing by the APD (27 fatalities, many of them unarmed, just since 2010). 

But $350 an hour is apparently not sufficient remuneration for the duo and they got caught scraping the bottom of the commonweal's cookie jar, scratching for every last green chile flavored crumb. One can only imagine how mortified Council Members Ken Sanchez, Isaac Benton, Brad Winter, Diane Gibson, Trudy Jones and Don Harris, who voted in favor of the contract, must be for their lack of discernment. They have to be thinking, What other foxes have we naively let into the chicken coop even after being repeatedly warned during public comments by the people who saw through these two?!

And what kind of contract could CABQ possibly have approved wherein these kinds of pecuniary abuses are not immediate grounds for its dissolution? We don't have the final tally yet, but under New Mexico statutes: 30-16-1. Larceny.  D. "Whoever commits larceny when the value of the property stolen is over five hundred dollars ($500) but not more than two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500) is guilty of a fourth degree felony." A defendant convicted of a fourth degree felony in New Mexico faces up to eighteen months in prison and a fine up to $5,000. Shall I call Corrections Secretary Marcantel and reserve a couple of luxury suites in the prison in Clovis just in case?

KRQE broke the story; not sure why.

By now it's dawning on everyone in the Land of Enchantment not enchanted into a stuporous coma that these DOJ Consent Decrees are fabulously enriching business opportunities for the "experts" who jimmy up some expertise. In this case Greenwood's past gig at the ACLU, cynically trading on its brand for personal gain, and Streicher's tenure as a police chief whose own department was the object of DOJ scrutiny for the killing of 15 Black men in five years, many of them unarmed. Yep, if I read this summary of his chiefdom right those are his qualifications--a pile of corpses and a record of resistance to departmental reform. 

If Albuquerque's lucky it'll get some of the money back after the audit, and if Greenwood and Streicher are lucky they'll somehow avoid being indicted by District Attorney Brandenburg for theft from the people of New Mexico. But in all likelihood the conditions that led to the too-tempting-to-resist spending spree will not be altered, and the people of Albuquerque will remain on their knees tithing heavily to the well-established Church of Endemic Corruption posing as the Chapel of Anomalous Malfeasance. 

A buckeye. 'Nuff said.

I wrote, just this morning, to Councilman Brad Winter to see if he would be demanding an apology for the rip-offs from the Buck Eye Boyz Gang, and to learn if he's planning on proposing setting reasonable expense guidelines for outside consultants. I'll happily publish his response when it arrives sometime after the end of the Anthropocene.

Another question I asked Winter was whether the mounting pile of evidence of bad stewardship of taxpayer resources is concerning to him vis a vis Albuquerque's bond ratings in the capital markets. But I might've saved the pixels. After speaking with a press officer in Moody's NYC office, Albuquerque has little to fear from the bond rating agencies. They're looking solely at factors that could have an impact on the city's ability to repay its debts in bond instruments over 20 to 30 years.  

Even money damages from wrongful death and injury lawsuits in the tens of millions are a mere rounding error in its $870 million annual budget. And while good governance is one of Moody's metrics, I was advised that they never give prescriptive advice. Poof went my fantasy of having our corporate overlords rein in a governmental body unable to hold itself accountable, even a teensy little bit. 

I also wrote to Mister (gotta spell it out for him) Scott Greenwood himself and offered space here for him and Streicher to say how very sorry they are. Not just for getting caught, but for flaunting their white male privilege and class entitlement in a decadent display of Gimme!

An uncanny resemblance to that ole Buckeye Scott Greenwood stuffing his face.

Additionally, in their self-selected role as the people's guardians of the DOJ Consent Decree process I also wrote to APD Forward, specifically to ACLU-NM Exec. Dir. Peter Simonson in his capacity as spokesman, to learn what its position on the expense scandal might be. I had hoped to find an excoriating statement on their website (it's been ten days since the scandal broke), and really don't know to what to attribute the group's silence on the matter.  It reflects so very poorly on them. With watchdogs like these...

Frankly, I don't expect to hear back from Mister Simonson because I may have pissed him off months ago in a little listserv contretemps when in so many words I expressed the concern that he himself may be lusting after one of these plummy consultant gigs in some other poor unsuspecting American city being held hostage by a militarized police force. All he had to do is say he wouldn't touch a gig like that with a 10-foot pole...but to everyone's disappointment, he didn't.

And if it's the case that he's upset with me for even suggesting that such a future lucrative possibility may be motivating and influencing his actions and inaction in the here and now, well...c'est la vie.

Unlike Moody's, Written Word, Spoken Word does offer prescriptive advice, even unsolicited!

Perhaps Ken Ellis, Steve Torres, Mike Gomez, or other of the family members of APD victims who are part of the organization and whose moral authority blankets APD Forward in a patina of conscience, might wish to secure a public statement from everyone on the legal team that they will not seek such lucrative consultancies using APD Forward as a launching pad. It would feel a lot cleaner.

This comes to mind because I'm sure I'm not the only reader who felt some measure of disdain for the tepid and obfuscating  APD Forward Analysis (for Dummies?) of the 106-page agreement. In its initial iteration anyway, the APD Forward legal team offered up bullet points and "Bottom Lines" that give little of the sense of what a crushing disappointment and betrayal of good faith this document is.

Bottom Line: Though they get kudos for slogging through the 106 pages of info dump in the document that now governs the APD reform process, APD Forward pulled a heckuva lot of punches in conveying the document's significance in maintaining the status quo in power relations.

 So different in tone and substance from La Jicarita's David Correia (one of the Burque 13) who concluded in his analysis:

"If there was one thing that no one believed, it was that APD could police itself. And yet, the idea that the solution to APD is APD is at the very heart of this Agreement. And DOJ’s faith in APD’s ability and willingness to police itself produces its share of absurdities.

Consider the section that actually “requires” that APD officers self-report their misconduct “to a supervisor or directly to the Internal Affairs Bureau.” Or the part of the Agreement that now requires that APD officers carry officer-misconduct complaint forms wherever they go. “Officer, once you’re done violating my constitutional rights, could you pass me one of those complaint forms in your pocket?” Or the section titled “Community and Problem-Oriented Policing” that actually includes the following sentence: “APD shall ensure that officers are familiar with the geographic areas they serve.” Or the fact that the Agreement leaves it up to APD to train its officers in “leadership, ethics and interpersonal skills.” I laughed out loud so often while reading this Agreement that my daughter, in the other room, thought I was watching a sitcom.

The women in the first row--Nora Anaya, Barbara Grothus and Kathy Brown--3 of the Burque 13, watching CABQ unanimously pass the Agreement negotiated by Streicher and Greenwood.The Burque 13 went to jail, incurred injuries, lost income, faced ridicule, and are still not out from under the legal wrangling with the City, while the Buckeye gang gobbles down $53 steak dinners on their dime. Mike Gomez, whose son Alan was shot in the back by by APD officer Sean Wallace (back row), is a portrait of parental anguish.

But the Agreement is no sitcom; it’s a horror show. In section after section, the DOJ identifies a problem and then charges the very agency responsible for creating that problem with coming up with a plan to fix it. The DOJ noted profound deficiencies in Internal Affairs investigations of officer-involved use of force. This Agreement “solves” that problem by requiring that APD “ensure that investigations of officer misconduct complaints shall be as thorough as necessary to reach reliable and complete findings.” The Agreement describes new requirements for crisis intervention training, requires new processes for officer misconduct investigation, and defines new oversight responsibilities for brass. but in every case—in every case—leaves it up to APD to achieve those goals. Each obligation or requirement in the Agreement is followed with a sentence that includes the language “APD shall develop and implement” or “APD shall revise and update its policies and procedures ” or “APD shall develop objective criteria for.” The only evidence that DOJ was involved in drafting this Agreement is the fact that much of it is plagiarized from other consent decrees. Otherwise, it reads as though drafted by APD itself.

We live in a city with a police department that routinely violates the constitutional rights of the people it’s charged to serve. It kills and brutalizes people at an alarming rate and with a frightening precision and it’s been doing it for decades. And, after this Agreement, there’s no end in sight."

At the End of a Long and Lawless Day, Burque Media Represents in Ferguson

Article and images (unless noted) by Frances Madeson

New Mexico is love-bombing Ferguson.

One of the most positive concrete outcomes of the police brutality movement in Albuqerque this season is the founding of a community media outlet whose focus is media justice. With all due respect, we in the activism community refer to the local corporate paper as The Albuquerque Urinal, and the alternative press while seeming to engage with many issues of concern also manages to stop well short of providing information and perspectives that would fundamentally challenge the status quo. Into this gaping void Burque Media, whose tagline is Countering Lies, Exposing Truths, was born.

Image by Dinah Vargas. "A visual exploration of what it means to be from somewhere."

Along with the state flag, the Desert Spirits banner is representing New Mexico on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri this weekend.

"I almost feel like I'm going to war, like it's a duty," Dinah Vargas, co-founder of Burque Media Productions told me about the impulse to join the fray in Ferguson. "The violence, the threat is very real. But Albuquerque's still in this. No one said we're out. I feel called to go."

Partners in Media Justice--Dinah Vargas and Steve Kramer

1,037 miles separate Albuquerque from St. Louis County, but that isn't stopping Steve Kramer. He says he's primarily impelled by a desire to demonstrate reciprocity, solidarity. "We've had people come here to join us in our struggle. It was important to us, it meant a lot. Likewise, we will go there.

"As organizers ourselves, we're sensitive to the fact that they don't want troublemakers who can hurt their cause. We understand about outside agitators. But we reached out to organizers there on the ground, and got positive feedback as to our coming. We bring that sensitivity being involved in our own community."

Within hours three vast coolers were filled with supplies for the people on the ground contributed by people in the Albuquerque Police Violence movement. Medical supplies too.

Among the truckload of contributed goods, Nora Anaya, one of the Burque 13, made sure there were healing roots and herbs used by the Curanderas healers of New Mexico. Nora explained to me:

"The healing herbs I sent were what was used in times of old, when there were no doctors for thousands of miles--roots and herbs from the cabinet. For instance clove that you might use to spice a ham could take the pain from a toothache until they could find a way to pull the tooth. Or eucalyptus oil for asthma, a few drops under the nose helps clear the passageways.

"I sent contra yerva, one of the most powerful herbs that I've encountered. When you pull it out of the earth and it dries, it becomes almost rock like. It's grated and used in powder form and would be very helpful in healing wounds from rubber bullets, for instance. I sent two bags of contra yerva, and a parmesan cheese grater.

"And I meant to give them a quick lesson on healing facial wounds before they left. The best band-aid on the face is the skin of the shell of an egg. It has proteins and you can use a little of the egg white for adhesive. Hold it down with a little bit of pressure and it becomes like a second skin."

At the Enterprise Car Rental where we went to rent the truck--rows of vehicles from various law enforcement agencies.

"We're fighting a system of unlimited resources," says Steve Kramer.

"We'll have a different presence, being from Albuquerque," Dinah explained. "We're coming as citizen journalists, community people who have been through it. When the tear gas clears, the rubber bullets have been picked up off the street, and the press goes away, it doesn't mean that the problems go away. They remain."

Joining the entourage, Ledford Thomas who will be radio blogging on Burque Media. Thomas hopes to meet the Brown family while in Ferguson.

Thomas, a retired Account Manager for Sprint, sees this moment as a "defining moment." He sees "a Nation of People coming together around this." He hopes to document "the historical moment when change DID happen. I want to be able to tell my grandson that I was there."

Our friend Isaac Mitchell, who thanks to the APD will have no grandsons from Jonathan. (Dinah's image, I think)

After hours of preparation (including picking up gas masks, just in case), it soon came time to pack up the truck. Vi from Burque Media came with her young son to give her friends a sendoff of hugs, smiles and fine words. "These are my brothers and sisters in the fight," she told me brimming with a current of high emotion. "I want to be here with them before they go. The National Guard is in Ferguson, and that's bad."

"The police are shooting people," Vi continued. "Because they feel threatened by the color of their skin, or their clothes, all these superficial reasons. This is a Class War we've been engaged in for many years now, and it's all over the country. At Burque Media we're just trying to wake people up, and bring visibility to experience and knowledge from other places."

In addition to the many visitors who had come by to drop off supplies, many emails and other messages of support were conveyed. "This is a peoples' effort," Dinah explained. "We wouldn't be on our way if it weren't for the many contributions of cash and Western Union wires we received from about fifteen contributors so far. Every time someone said I wish I could give even more, I said What you gave is exactly what we needed. And it's true.

"We're going out there, and we might not see any action," Dinah said. "But we're going to get that second story, the one from the people, the story of the community. We live the struggle every day. City Councilman Dan Harris whined that he was tired of the public comments. He doesn't know what tired is. It isn't ever over for us, it doesn't ever end for us. And I don't think it can."

To help bring our friends home from Ferguson on Monday and to support the continued work of Burque Media, won't you please consider making a generous contribution. A Go Fund Me campaign has been established HERE.

Update: Watching the raw footage Burque Media has been sharing via Ustream is everything I personally hoped for. Dinah and Steve are bringing love, soothing people with their voices, words, handshakes, embraces. I can only imagine the richness of experience they will be bringing home to New Mexico, and am so deeply and hugely proud that they are our ambassadors to Missouri.

And the APD MRAP Goes to This Lucky Winner...

The Albuquerque Journal reported that APD’s 14-foot-tall, 45,000-pound Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle – aka MRAP – is going away.

Dear Ms. Madeson:

On behalf of Chief Gordon Eden and the entire Albuquerque Police Department, I am delighted to inform you that you have been selected as the winner in the “Take This MRAP Home Today” lottery held...well...today.

We've filled up the gas tank with the requisite 284 gallons, and the keys are in the ignition waiting for you. (Lucky monogrammed four-leaf clover keychain provided by APD Forward.)

The entire SWAT Team is detailing your new vehicle as I write this, and they're really putting their backs into it, getting in all those hard-to-reach nooks and crannies. It's a great community event,so please come on down and pick up your unique prize today!

Very truly yours,

Janet Blair
Communications and Community Outreach Director
Albuquerque Police Department

Dear Ms. Blair:

Thank you so much for reaching out, but there must be some mistake as I'm pretty sure that I never entered the lottery. I eschew lotteries in general and especially have no need of an armored vehicle at this time. My Honda Fit is adequate for my transportation needs, and the few times a year when it snows, I just stay home. Plus, my trusted landlords assure me that there are no landmines on our property and none reported ever in the Santa Fe County vicinity. They are, however, concerned that at over 10 ft. high, it won't fit under my carport.

But thank you for thinking of me, and best of luck with scrapping it.

Thanks, but no thanks,


Frances Madeson

Image by Charlie Grapski

Dear Ms. Madeson:

How silly of me. I just conferred with Mayor Berry who has it on good authority from CAO Perry who got it from Chief Eden that we, by which I mean the City of Albuquerque, are throwing in a new carport.

It seems you and I both neglected to read the fine print, but fortunately ACLU-NM Exec. Dir. Peter Simonson, who's really good at this kind of thing, alerted us to the fact that down at the bottom in the teensiest of lettering is the proviso that a height-appropriate carport is indeed part of your winnings.

Please expect representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers in the next 72 hours to arrive at your casita to begin construction.

Also, I've checked the weather for the next few hours and while we might get some always welcome precip (we are in the throes of monsoon season after all), it's nothing your new MRAP can't handle. If it were to hail grapefruits, cantaloupes or even watermelons, your new MRAP, as I'm sure you already know, was built to withstand improvised explosive devices (IEDs). I'm wholly confident that your new MRAP can take Mother Nature's very worst, assuming it arrives, at least until we get that new rust-resistant carport up for you.

All to say, we really need you to get yourself down here with a valid NM driver's license before the end of business today. I'm sure you understand as the savvy lottery winner that you are that it would be a boon for all concerned if your bon voyage christening (we're prepared to smash an entire magnum of New Mexico's own Gruet Brut courtesy of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce) made this evening's television news.

Not to pressure you unduly, but KOAT, KRQE, and KOB are all running with the story as their lead. In fact, all of the really relevant footage has already been shot, we just need a smiling you behind the wheel getting on I-25 North heading up to the State's capitol.

And if we make the 6 o'clock broadcasts, as an extra bonus, City Council Prez Ken Sanchez himself plans to escort you to the Bernalillo County line!

With every good wish,


Janet Blair
Communications and Community Outreach Director
Albuquerque Police Department

P.S. An investigative reporter at KRQE has rather urgently inquired if you've thought of an affectionate pet name for your new MRAP yet? If not, please don't sweat it, we'll make one up for you. See you shortly!

Rob Perry as imaginatively rendered by Albuquerque imagist Dinah Vargas. (I must ask her what that P stands for.)

Dear Ms. Blair:

Whoa, whoa, whoa there, lady! I've just had a very concerning phone call from my Geico rep, who informs me that the annual insurance premiums for what you keep insisting is “my MRAP” will break my personal piggy bank. I'm not even waiting for my accountant to get back to me with the personal property tax consequences to tell you the following in no uncertain terms: please don't look for me at the christening ceremony. I find I have an unalterable pre-existing scheduling conflict.

I really must encourage you to find another lucky winner.

Sincerely,


Frances Madeson

Chief Gordon Eden ready for his close-up. I must remember to ask Dinah why he doesn't have a P?

Dear Ms. Madeson:

Well, this is awkward, but I regret to inform you that your winnings (MRAP and carport) are not transferable. Civil rights specialist Simonson was adamant on that point. Or as he put it just moments ago, "Tell her I've gone back as far as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and there's simply no wiggle room."

But I do have some marvelous news. APD Officers Anthony Sedler and Ramon Ornelas, just back on duty after the unfortunate shooting of alleged car-thief Jeremy Robertson (multiple bullets fired into his back as he fled from them), have volunteered on their own dime to deliver your now gleaming MRAP to your home. Not exactly sure of their ETA, but after dark for sure.

It's been a pleasure corresponding with you on this matter.

All best to you,


Janet B.

Dear Ms. Blair:

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Over-Charging

Power has greatly abused its authority in New Mexico and some of us are trying to do something about that in various arenas, but particularly in the struggle to end police violence in Albuquerque. We're confronting power, we're directly challenging the people who lay exclusive claim to it, and we're rebalancing the power relations between us. 

Our efforts must be working quite well, because the city administration's tactics are gaining in repugnance what they lack in credibility—witch-hunts of one stripe or another, patently obvious perversions of our own institutions to punish us for defiance in the face of lawlessness. For what is Unconstitutional Policing if not the zenith of lawlessness?

The results of a new KRQE poll are telling. As is this remarkable video footage of what is being purported to be the basis of a felony charge ludicrously pending against David Correia, one of the Burque 13.

More Dirty Dancing than the Dirty Dozen, I'd say.

In grossly over-charging  David (as the video plainly shows and the New Mexico Mercury reports) Power's lackeys do our job for us--eyes are opening to injustice; people, and not just White people, are shaking off their stupor.

According to the autopsy report, Mary Hawkes,19, took three kill shots. Bullets at a downward angle entered her ear, neck and shoulder. APD Officer Jeremy Dear, her acknowledged shooter, is still at large.

The sheer fact of the over-charge, however, the show of force it represents, is presumably intended to have a chilling effect on our ever-growing coalition. But with a pile of five dead bodies this Spring of Sorrows, Mary Hawkes' among them, the over-charge is having the opposite effect—it's warming us up, instead. And in case you were wondering how low some alleged journalists can go...?

 

In threatening the mother of the boy in the video with "child endangerment charges,” a boy whose father was killed by the APD (they forgot to mention that in their story), they have succeeded in pissing off just about everybody else not already outraged by the killings. 

COA Rick Perry wants the boy's mother to sink to her knees in fear and despair, but before that happens he'll have to get past:

Nora Anaya

 Dinah Vargas

Frances Madeson

and a few other uppity women we know.

Further attacking our friend's family is a non-starter. Ditto to not-so-subtly threatening parents who bring their kids to marches and rallies. Somehow I don't see that message going over so well with the Respect Albuquerque Women coalition. Not at all. In trying to terrorize a single mama of three with the state-sanctioned kidnapping of her children, they've probably quadrupled our attendance at Roosevelt Park. And damn if Dinah didn't see them coming when she created this!

More information at www.apdprotest.org

Plus, I hear we've successfully booked Mala Maña! So whatever else happens on Summer Solstice at Coal and Sycamore, it's going to be a spirited day of beautiful music, dancing and community.

Speaking of the human community, I just sent this lady a letter. It only takes a minute. 

Chair-Elect Mary Lynn Roper - NM Broadcaster's Foundation
President/General Manager KOAT-TV
Albuquerque, NM 87125-5982
mroper@hearst.com

Charlie gave me the idea. My letter reads:

Dear Ms. Roper:

I don't know whether you were sabotaged, blindsided or undermined by staff, but this propaganda parading as journalism is on you. With so much at stake, we're all watching you very closely to see how quickly and well you handle it. Good luck.

I am also posting this letter online as part of the "Over-Charging" blogpost on Written Word, Spoken Word. Please feel free to respond in the comments so everyone may have the benefit of your answer.

With every good wish for a thorough Spring cleaning,

Frances Madeson

Sent to Roper via email on 6/7/14