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Sunday, February 20, 2011
APD Culture Needs Correcting
By Matthew Coyte
Albuquerque attorney
Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz missed an opportunity this week to send a message to this community that the views of officer Trey Economidy, and others like him, will not be tolerated. Instead, Schultz treated the issue as one of bad judgment resulting in bad publicity. He should have condemned the attitudes behind the Facebook postings.
Economidy's description of his job as a "human waste disposal" is not simply a breach of etiquette on a social networking site. It is a symptom of something much more worrying. It is evidence of an ugly culture within the department that inevitably contributes to the abuse of Albuquerque's citizens.
But rather than focus on the cause of these symptoms, Schultz turned his attention to the bad publicity Internet social sites can generate. When it was revealed another Facebook page contained officers rejoicing at the death of a prominent civil rights attorney, or posing with guns while making gang signs, Schultz again expressed the view there needed to be new policies regarding what officers can post on the Internet.
This misses the point. It is not the Internet that needs fixing. It is the culture within the Albuquerque Police Department that allows such views to flourish. Until this culture is met head on, until this culture is destroyed, the citizens of Albuquerque are going to continue to be the victims of police abuse.
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