NM National Guard chief says operation on Central Avenue 'didn't change much'

A mission impossible?

When the New Mexico National Guard hit the streets around the once-famed Route 66/Central Avenue corridor in October, the task was to create a "measurable difference" in the area's chronic crime problem.

The team, dispatched by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, got an eyeful, but the results were mixed, according to New Mexico National Guard Maj. Gen. Miguel Aguilar, who gave a post-mortem of the operation to the state Senate Finance Committee earlier this week.

"It's just overloaded with crime," Aguilar said of the Central Avenue corridor. "Absent structural changes, current outcomes are predictable and self-sustaining."

The National Guard was deployed after Lujan Grisham issued an executive order in the spring of last year. About 80 guardsmen were contemplated for the assignment but at times that number climbed to 130, he said. They were trained by the Albuquerque Police Department to perform duties that would free up sworn officers to make arrests. Instead of uniforms, the guardsmen wore polo shirts and khaki pants.

"Everybody who got on this assignment wanted to be there," Aguilar said. Currently, a group of the National Guard is assisting law enforcement in the Española area. And the guard also has members deployed in Africa on federally assigned duties.

"What we were tasked to try to do was to create a measurable difference over a prolonged period of time along the Central corridor," Aguilar told the committee. "The frustrating part for probably all of us, including my boss, was it didn't look different, right? What we came to realize is that no matter how much criminal enforcement we're doing, and we could have done more in those initial weeks, we really weren't having the effect that we wanted to have."

Albuquerque's 18-mile stretch of Route 66 on Central Avenue is in the spotlight, especially this year because of the roadway's centennial anniversary.

Aided by the guardsmen, nearly 1,000 individuals were arrested by the APD and New Mexico State Police during the deployment, in the period from after the Balloon Fiesta to after Thanksgiving. The contingent ended its mission in December.

In the 2.75 square mile area of the corridor designated for intense law enforcement, roughly Louisiana to Wyoming, those committing low-level crimes were disproportionately responsible for the city's total crime problem, he said.

According to Aguilar, about 74% were arrested on warrants, such as failing to appear for court. Some 40% were arrested for "public order" crimes; 29% for drug offenses; 19% for violent crimes, and the rest for property crimes, he said.

Over the 60-day period of concentrated focus on Central Avenue, 80% of those arrested were released on pretrial conditions and 50% were released from custody within 48 hours, Aguilar said. Of those cases that reached "resolution," 3o% ended in a conviction and 70% were resolved when they were dismissed by prosecutors "within one or two days of arrest." 

The rapid release from jail, according to the National Guard's assessment, "undercuts deterrent and incapacitation," Aguilar said. Those addicted to drugs, such as fentanyl that goes for 50 cents a pill, are likely still under the effects of the narcotic and haven't had a chance to withdraw before being released back on the streets, he said.

The low price of fentanyl, Aguilar said, is a sign that "we're not having an effect on the supply and that's problematic."

"The Central corridor functions as an open air drug market," he told the committee. "As our guardsmen and the city of Albuquerque has found as well, when you try to do outreach with those that are unhoused who are also addicted, they will not take advantage of sheltering because it takes them out of the area from which the narcotics are available to them and they tell us, 'I'm not going to leave here because this is where I get my drugs.'"

Aguilar said he wasn't blaming any particular agency for what is occurring on the Central Avenue corridor area, but he said the criminal justice system, "just can't keep up with it." 

"None of this is intended from my perspective to blame anybody in the system," Aguilar said. "What we found in the operation was no matter what we did from a criminal enforcement perspective, the environment didn't change much. We kept seeing the same people and the same level of activity on the streets."

A 'disaster relief area'

Local leaders have also expressed some discontent with the mission. 

City Councilor Nichole Rogers, who represents the bulk of the mission's focus area, said that she wanted the National Guard to lead humanitarian efforts using their built-in training for national disaster response.

"In my opinion, there's parts of my district that feel like a Third World disaster relief area," Rogers said. 

Though grateful for the assist, Rogers said that lasting change along East Central won't happen with a focus on policing. 

If she was at the helm, Rogers said she would have directed the Guard to survey those living on the street, escort children to school through the walking school bus program and set up warming tents.

She added, "And that, I think, would have gotten us closer to what the governor wanted, which is get people out of the streets (and) get the streets cleaned up."

Rogers said that the misstep could be an opportunity for the Guard and other state agencies to reconsider their approach, regroup and return in a more united front. 

Meanwhile, APD Director of Communications Gilbert Gallegos told the Journal that police are constantly performing enforcement operations along the Central Avenue Corridor.

"We have one right now focusing on public transportation platforms such as bus stops, ART platforms and transit transfer stations," he said. "Last week, we made 186 arrests for new charges and offenders being taken in on warrants. Three guns were seized. The Narcotics Unit conducted an operation that resulted in the arrest of three individuals for trafficking."

On Thursday, he added, APD conducted an operation between Louisiana and Pennsylvania in which nine people were arrested for patronizing prostitutes.

Last year's $9 million National Guard operation wasn't in vain, Aguilar said.

"It's not the effects we wanted, but now we have the data set," he said, "if we can come here and tell that story, then it's not in vain."

State Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, who is Senate president pro tempore, said parts of the Central Avenue corridor are within her legislative District 17. 

"Central is bad, but the street south of Central is worse, that's where they throw up their tents," Stewart said at Wednesday's meeting. "After the National Guard came, you don't see the level of trash and people and their stuff. I think it has made a difference. But now that you're gone, things could get worse."

Committee chair Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, who invited Aguilar to speak, thanked him for the "objective perspective."

"I've driven the Central corridor," he said. "It motivates me to try to do something about it. At times it feels like the part of New Mexico that time forgot; where law and order have no place. My kids refer to it as Gotham."