Police auditor dings LCPD on tasers; otherwise high marks

Las Cruces Police Department’s officers are doing a better job of holding each other accountable, and the department has instituted a robust internal review process, according to the city’s hired independent auditor.

Despite an overall positive description of LCPD as an organization willing to listen to feedback and provide documentation, California-based OIR Group dinged LCPD on issues around the use of tasers during a presentation to the Las Cruces City Council on Aug. 26.

OIR said that recent taser incidents highlighted a problem that OIR has pointed out since its second review: the inappropriate use of a taser. 

In one such incident from 2021, OIR said an officer used their taser to threaten a man after being called to intervene in a custody dispute. The man was later arrested. But the charges were dropped, and the man sued the city shortly after. 

“The officer's actions at the scene were flawed from the outset and were followed by several other actions that were not justified under policy or training, including the use of the taser,” the report said. 

The same report also lauded the efforts LCPD has made in its more comprehensive response to the use-of-force investigations. 

“The Department has also implemented numerous checks and balances to ensure that all force cases, including uses of the Taser, are effectively reviewed,” the report said, adding the LCPD should expedite a proposed revision to the department's taser use protocol.

After a council meeting on Aug. 26, community members appeared for OIR’s first community meeting. The auditors agreed to host community meetings after the city agreed to increase OIR’s annual pay to $125,000 in May, a 66 percent increase from the past year. 

Las Cruces has experienced multiple rancorous public meetings in recent months, so the expectations for this meeting were well established. But Monday’s meeting was a significant scale down from those. Only about 14 people, not including city staff, showed up to the meeting. 

Attendees raised concerns about police shooting investigations that take too long, the need for more transparency and the impact of policing on the community. 

“Transparency, so we can understand the facts, has been really a concern in the community,” one attendee said, adding that her personal experience with LCPD has been positive. 

Family members of Teresa Gomez, a Las Cruces woman killed by LCPD officer Felipe Hernandez in 2023, were also present for the meeting. 

“So, my question is, you said cases can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to end, and officers are placed on administrative leave. Is there a limit to how long they can be on leave? Because to me, that sounds like a paid vacation, and that does not sound right,” the family member said. 

However, most of Monday evening's discussion focused on LCPD and not the auditor's narrow scope, a point that OIR representatives Teresa Magula and Stephen Connelly repeated several times throughout the evening. 

“The specifics of what we do are a little different, depending on what the individual needs and priorities of the community are,” Connelly said. 

OIR’s scope of work has increased in the four years since the firm began auditing the police. Currently, OIR reviews internal investigations and determines whether the officer involved followed best practices and whether the department adequately handled the investigation. OIR then makes recommendations to the department about policy changes.

That did not initially include all use-of-force incidents, but now does, following an internal change by LCPD. So now, OIR reviews all use-of-force incidents regardless of whether a complaint was lodged. It’s unclear when that change occurred, but OIR attributed it to Jeremy Story’s ascension to chief of police in 2023. 

OIR also lauded a slew of other LCPD changes over the years. They credited the department for working toward a highly coveted national certification, implementing a system of punishment and training for substantiated misconduct, prioritizing a fully staffed internal affairs division and taking more consistent corrective actions. 

Connelly provided an example of this occurring in real-time for LCPD during a recent traffic collision. 

"(Two officers) were inclined towards wanting to just find a shortcut, basically, to resolve the situation,” Connely said. “Another officer and a supervisor came along and made sure that there was a much more thorough and appropriate investigation into what happened.”

OIR also reiterated a long-standing compliment to LCPD: that the department is responsive, provides documents, and, according to Connelly and Magula, sees OIR as a partner in improving policing. 

"(Story) will oftentimes call us after reviewing the original draft. He'll have questions, he'll have clarification, occasionally a little scratchy pushback, which we think is great,” Connelly said. “He has illustrated things for us or explained things to us about the department, and his vision of things that have changed our minds about specific aspects of specific reports.”