OPINION: National Guard's arrival a welcomed deployment for ABQ

Albuquerque City Councilor Dan Lewis referred to it as “broken arrow,” a military code used by ground units facing destruction who call for immediate air support on their own position.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham says deploying the New Mexico National Guard here is necessary due to a “surge in criminal activity” that has created a state of emergency in Albuquerque. Her May 9 executive order says the “disaster” in the city “has placed an extraordinary burden on the Albuquerque Police Department.”

Mayor Tim Keller, running for a third four-year term, seems to disagree. He says violent and property crimes are down to levels not seen in a decade.

Police Chief Harold Medina says he reached out to the National Guard for help months ago, and he gladly accepts the assistance. “I’m at the point of my career that I’m not afraid to stick my neck out and try something outside the box,” he said earlier this month.

The politics of deploying the National Guard to the state’s biggest city, just months ahead of city elections, are thick. In a podcast I did with Mark Ronchetti and his wife last week, the former Republican U.S. Senate and gubernatorial nominee said the Democratic governor is doing the Democratic mayor no favors, directly contradicting Mayor Keller’s message that crime is down.

“It shows that there is a real communication gap, to be charitable,” Ronchetti said on Wednesday.

But putting the politics aside, if that’s possible, can the guard’s deployment to Albuquerque for an expected six-month mission make a difference? Absolutely.

Seventy-one members of the National Guard are being fully deployed to Albuquerque this Memorial Day weekend as part of Operation Zia Shield, a name that invokes memories of Operation Desert Shield in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Chief Medina has said “there is no intent of a military presence in Albuquerque,” so the guardsmen and women won’t carry guns, wear fatigues or be authorized to make arrests. Instead, they’re hitting the mean streets of Albuquerque equipped more like tourists, armed with pepper spray and wearing polo shirts. Our guardsmen and women deserve better than that.

A city spokesperson says Albuquerque Police Department policies require full police academy training for sworn officers in areas such as use of force and standard operating procedures. But such restrictions may prove imprudent as the operation unfolds.

Today’s guardsmen and women aren’t the trigger-happy Ohio National Guardsmen of May 1970 who fired dozens of bullets into a crowd of Kent State University demonstrators, killing four students and wounding nine others. Guard units have frequently been deployed to war zones in recent decades, and, in fact, many of ours have a military occupational specialty as trained military police.

“Military Police protect, defend and uphold the rule of law,” states the New Mexico National Guard’s website. “As the Guard’s security experts, MPs are trained in force protection, anti-terror and crime prevention functions — including many duties that mirror those of civilian officers.”

New Mexico National Guard public affairs director Hank Minitrez told me last week that 16 of the 71 guardsmen being deployed here are Army military police, while one is an Air National Guard security force member, the Air Force’s equivalent of military police. That means almost 24% of the 71 guardsmen are highly trained in military policing — all the more reason to arm and equip them as we would a civilian police officer.

Moreover, the National Guard members who volunteered for the assignment have undergone extensive training in recent weeks, including self-defense tactics, responsible use of force, and crisis intervention.

One of the criticisms of deploying the guard to quell unrest in a particular area is that doing so depletes local law enforcement agencies. But that isn’t the case here. Minitrez said none of the 71 guardsmen, all between the ages of 18 to 43, are active-duty sworn law enforcement officers. “(A)nd that’s by design,” he said.

It’s unlikely the guard will be instrumental to law enforcement in the Duke City in the coming months, but who knows. I spoke with a local Uber driver last week who said Central Avenue is looking much better since the launch of Operation Route 66 in February. I’d read that the joint operation in the International District of the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, State Police, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and the New Mexico Corrections Department’s Probation and Parole Division has led to 700 arrests in three months, many of them repeat offenders, and resulted in the recovery of dozens of guns and stolen vehicles.

But I wanted to see for myself, so I drove the length of Central Avenue recently.

There was one guy lying flat on his back mid-morning in the sidewalk of the International District while others milled about at a bus stop, but it didn’t look like the war zone of the past, blighted by numerous homeless encampments, widespread open air drug use, and public defecation and urination. The Route 66 operation involving about 100 law enforcement officers appears to be working and will thankfully continue for the foreseeable future.

“(The 700 arrests) is a staggering number and it shows how much this neighborhood deserved this operation,” Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman said during a news conference on Monday. “It’s unfair to the people that live here … to put up with this crap out on the streets. And what we’re trying all to do in law enforcement is bring back not only a sense of safety, but actual safety for the neighborhood.”

Unfair, indeed. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. The governor gets it. So do Bregman and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen.

“We’re only at halftime, folks,” Allen said on Monday. “We’re not here to just do 60 or 90 days. We’re looking to do more and stay here in this community.”

We need more of that, not less. And we need to support our arriving guardsmen and women every way we can, including allowing them to carry their service weapons while directing traffic, securing crime scenes and performing other duties that could quickly escalate.

Jeff Tucker is a former Opinion editor of the Albuquerque Journal and a member of the Journal Editorial Board. He may be emailed at jtucker@abqjournal.com.