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| Happy Fourth! |
The APD DWI scandal, wherein cops allegedly took a walk on court hearings for drivers charged with drunk driving, also brings to the fore another major lapse in DWI enforcement in ABQ and the state.
A report reveals that more than 2,200 suspected drunk drivers in the past two years have kept their driving privileges because police have been no shows at state Motor Vehicle Department hearings where licenses are revoked for six months for driving under the influence.
That leads to this take from a law enforcement professional:
Governor Lujan Grisham needs to add a rewrite to the state's DWI laws in the upcoming special session because the APD DWI scandal and now the MVD scandal show DWI enforcement is failing in New Mexico.
As citizens we can only wonder what the FBI investigation into the APD-DWI scandal will expose. Are ABQ Metro Court employees involved? Are MVD employees involved? How deep does this DWI scandal go and how far back?
Did MVD hearing officers report to MVD Director Mark Williams the huge number of officers failing to appear at their hearings? If they did report to him, what did Williams do or not do? If they failed to report to Williams, why? Why hasn’t MVD been auditing these hearings to determine what was happening?
You would think the people in charge at MVD, the legislature and Governor would require them to provide a yearly report on the number of DWI hearings, their outcomes and officers failing to appear.
Records show that APD officers failed to show up 50 percent of the time for the MD license revocation hearings. Tucumcari was best with a no-show rate of zero percent but a number of jurisdictions had no-show rates of 100 percent including the Clayton and Cuba police departments.
Happy Fourth, New Mexico!
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