Albuquerque police caught using racial slurs

ALBUQUERQUE — They thought the lapel camera was off.

A group of Albuquerque police officers laughed as they threw around racial slurs — calling Native Americans "savages" — and disparaged the man they just killed as a "honky" with "a weird accent," expressing relief that the man wasn't Black "because of the optics."

At one point, one officer tells the others: "I like violent encounters with violent people. That's why I became a cop. I didn't come to (expletive) help old ladies who can't cross the (expletive) road."

He continued, "I want to take actual shitheads that are actually doing stuff off the streets. If that means we shoot some of them, so be it."

Not known to the officers was that the April 11 conversation was recorded when they forgot to turn off the lapel camera of an officer who had just fatally shot 30-year-old Mark Benavidez. Benavidez had grabbed an officer's rifle and fired it repeatedly during a scuffle outside a Walmart store in the northeast area of the city.

Officials with the Albuquerque Police Department have said the two detectives who shot Benavidez work undercover in APD's Gang Unit. For that reason, APD would not release their names and photographs, as has become common practice after police shootings.

It is unclear who is saying what in the lapel video, as several officers appear to get in or out of the vehicle and talk to others through the window, all while the still-running camera sat tucked behind a seat.

APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said an Internal Affairs investigation has begun to "determine the source and context of the comments, and whether any officers violated APD policies."

"Chief (Harold) Medina is particularly concerned," Gallegos said in an initial response. "As a former tribal police chief, Medina has made it a priority to build relationships with tribal agencies and educate APD officers about cultural differences."

Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement, "This behavior is unacceptable and it is a disservice to the officers who do the right thing."

"We try to support our officers and their hard work and sacrifices to keep the community safe; that's why it's especially disappointing to hear conversations that suggest a callous disregard toward the people we all serve," he said.

Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers' Association, said the comments were made "in jest" after a particularly stressful situation: Multiple rounds being fired in close quarters to a degree where hurried gunshot wound checks were done on the officers involved.

"This was about as real and as stressful as it gets," the head of the union said. "These guys were joking around, they were decompressing, they were saying inappropriate stuff — like a lot of us do with our friends and family when we're not in public."

Willoughby said police officers have some of the "darkest humor that is imaginable." He added that the officers are likely embarrassed and frustrated as they had no idea they were being recorded.

"We see things that are hard to deal with, we see things that are challenging, we see things that are disappointing, we see the decay of society 40 hours a week, 365 days a year," Willoughby said. "These guys are just human beings. They are no different than anybody else."

The Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women released a statement Wednesday saying it was "outraged and appalled by the recent revelations of deeply racist and dehumanizing language" by the officers.

The organization called for an "immediate, public and unreserved" apology, an action plan to address violence against indigenous communities and a review of APD policies "to root out discriminatory attitudes."

"These vile remarks are not isolated incidents but are emblematic of the systemic failures within law enforcement that devalue and dismiss the lives of Indigenous people," the statement went on to read. "Such derogatory attitudes directly contribute to the inadequacies in solving and preventing cases of violence against Indigenous communities."

Gallegos, the APD spokesman, said Chief Medina was in the process of reaching out to all tribal and pueblo leaders about the incident.

"He values their perspectives and wants to communicate directly with them as he moves APD forward," he said.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, called the video "a letdown of dramatic proportions."

He said he was "particularly disturbed" by the use of racial slurs "so flippantly" as well as the expressed attitudes toward violence, which he said gives the impression of APD as "just another gang vying for control over our streets."