The National Guard to Albuquerque? 

 

When we heard the news Tuesday that MLG was deploying up to 70 National Guard troops to help fight crime in ABQ we flashed back to the summer of '71 when we first arrived in the city. We were greeted by a curfew and armed national guardsmen speeding  down city streets in the wake of the riots that had broken out that June. Our new hometown suddenly seemed dangerous and sitting on a knife's edge. 

This time the the Guard presence is controversial and accompanied by stinging criticism about the state of the state's largest city. 

 

The Guard will be deployed on a soft mission, aimed at freeing up more APD officers to patrol the streets. But that air of danger ABQ held in those troubled days over half century ago is back today, despite repeated efforts by the Governor, Mayor and APD Chief to reverse a crime wave unprecedented in both scope and staying power. 

In his letter to the Governor requesting the Guard presence, APD Chief Medina said:

  

 

Although the Guard does respond to natural disasters, enlisting it in the crime fight without having the troops actually fighting crime tries to make it into something like the Red Cross or Salvation Army and not a highly-trained military force. The troops will not be wearing uniforms, but "polos" and not sporting arms, according to the Mayor. The Guv and Medina acknowledged the Guard will have to have special training before being sent to ABQ for their hands-off and out of the ordinary mission.

 

Just what have the Governor and Mayor stepped in here? It doesn't have a pleasant smell and we'll leave it at that.

(MLG news conference here. News release, executive order and Chief Medina letter here.)

The Governor said she declared an emergency and deployed the Guard in response to that request from Medina. 

 

We won't say she put a gun to his head but the action does appear aimed at bolstering her failed crime package and could be a prelude to her calling a special session on crime. But she says no decision on a special is coming down quickly as she continues to grapple with opposition from key Dem lawmakers. 

 

On the local level bringing the Guard in would seem to serve the cause of the opponents of Mayor Keller in the November election. They can portray it as a desperate act to control crime even as the Governor and Keller have failed to do so over the past six years. 

 

The problem is that the three major foes of Keller--former BernCo Sheriff Darren White, ABQ City Councilor Louie Sanchez and former Sandoval County Deputy Manager Mayling Armijo--are splitting the anti-Keller vote, leaving him free to roam about the building, or in this case riding in a National Guard jeep and throwing candy to pedestrians.

 

It was a Republican legislator, state Sen. Nicole Tobiassen, who was among the first to rip into Keller:

Sen. Tobiassen

Mayor Keller said at a news conference, (where he did not appear very jolly), that the Guard will add to the "momentum" the city has in fighting crime, displaying stats that have ABQ crime down in "almost" all major categories and declining for the first three months of the year. (News conference video here.)

 

But do people really feel that or believe it as the Governor contradicts him? In fact. . .

 

Recent outlandish crimes in the metro continue to play into MLG's hands but when haven't they? And when have they resulted in legislative action on her crime bills? They just haven't.

She faces a public increasingly numbed by crime and homelessness which are becoming generational problems here. There are no simple or quick solutions.

 

The fact that the Guard is being called in only reinforces the legislative viewpoint that APD and Mayor Keller are not getting the job done and more laws are not going to help.

 

The Governor gets credit for still caring and for fighting her deepening descent into lame-duck irrelevance. But she's already sent the state police here to battle crime, declared a gun emergency that was overturned in court and seen her crime package wither in this year's legislative session and a special session before that. 

 

We'd like to have some constructive suggestions for her but we're as perplexed as anyone. We do know we'll feel better when the Guard leaves the city just as we were back in 1971--even though this time the danger will remain.