{"id":31025,"date":"2023-10-23T21:16:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-23T21:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-police-clamp-down-on-public-records\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:32:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:32:28","slug":"farmington-police-clamp-down-on-public-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-police-clamp-down-on-public-records\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington Police clamp down on public records"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Farmington Police Department reports that officers have issued 83 citations and made seven arrests during a crackdown on street racing. Lenora Lare\/Tri-City Record<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has filed a complaint with the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General after the Farmington Police Department notified local news groups that it would no longer provide them with daily incident logs, arrest registers or jail in-and-out reports.<\/p>\n

The police decision follows the Tri-City Record\u2019s<\/em> requests for public information surrounding the department\u2019s involvement in a fatal, officer-involved shooting on the Navajo Nation. The man reportedly was armed with a firearm while barricading himself in a trailer near Shiprock. The Tri-City Record<\/em> received tips from numerous sources that a Farmington Police officer fired the fatal shot.<\/p>\n

The Farmington Police Department has been providing the documents to the Tri-City Record<\/em> since its inception and to KENN Radio for the past six years. Other news outlets also were receiving the reports.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record<\/em> is owned by Ballantine Communications Inc., which also owns The Journal<\/em> in Cortez and the Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis applies to everyone who has been receiving the reports,\u201d Farmington Police Spokesperson Shanice Gonzales wrote in an email Monday. \u201cEveryone got the same notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record<\/em> and KENN Radio were made aware of the change at 1:08 p.m. Oct. 23 in an email from Gonzales, who wrote, the department \u201cfrom now on\u201d would \u201conly be providing a weekly incident log every Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

She further stated that follow-up requests for information from the log \u201cwill be handled through Inspection of Public Records Act requests\u201d and would not be addressed until \u201cThursday of the subsequent week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzales also stated, \u201cany inquiries seeking additional information will be handled through IPRA requests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melanie Majors, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, addressed Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe in her emailed response, stating that logs and police reports \u201care all considered original records of entry and should be made available immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Majors urged Hebbe to \u201creconsider this move,\u201d because \u201cto make changes to the current procedures adds an additional level of bureaucracy (that) borders on petty and will only result in additional work for your department.\u201d<\/p>\n

The daily incident log provides the public with the number of incidents police respond to, the date, time and location of an offense as well as the case number assigned to the offense. It is generated daily by the Farmington Police Department.<\/p>\n

Gonzales said the Farmington Police also would no longer provide the department-generated arrest register, nor would they provide the in-and-out reports, which are generated by the San Juan County Detention Center.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record <\/em>made a formal request on Oct. 23 to San Juan County Public Affairs Director Devin Neeley requesting his assistance in accessing the daily in-and-out reports from the San Juan County Detention Center.<\/p>\n

Neeley responded that he spoke with the San Juan County Legal Department and they were working to provide the San Juan County Detention Center\u2019s in-and-out report to the Tri-City Record.<\/em><\/p>\n

The in-and-out report provides the names of people who have been booked into and released from the San Juan County Detention Center, along with the charges they face. It also provides the name of the local judge who will be handling the case.<\/p>\n

Neeley further stated that \u201cdaily bookings are available online\u201d and are \u201csearchable by name and date, and you can filter by whether the person is in custody or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county is researching whether they might make the in-and-out report available online as well.<\/p>\n

Majors said the in-and-out report is a public record that should be made available daily.<\/p>\n

Majors said it is important to note that under IPRA, records are to be provided immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a request is made at 9 a.m., the record should be received by 9:01 a.m.,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the records are sitting there and they\u2019re not providing them that is malfeasance.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her letter to Hebbe and the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General, Majors also addressed the Farmington Police Department\u2019s decision not to release information regarding a police-involved shooting in Shiprock, when a records request was made.<\/p>\n

Farmington Police Sgt. Rachel DiScenza-Smith initially responded to the request with the following statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cOn October 6, 2023 at approximately 1921 hours the Farmington Police Department SWAT team was requested by the Navajo Police Department to assist the Navajo Nation and they responded. Reports regarding the incident are not subject to release due to the ongoing investigation regarding this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Majors\u2019 letter shared case law, which does not allow police departments to choose to not release information because the case is under investigation. The New Mexico Supreme Court issued a ruling in July 2020, in Andrew Jones v. City of Albuquerque, \u201cstating IPRA\u2019s \u2018Section 14-2-1 (A)(4) does not create a blanket exception from inspection for law enforcement records relating to ongoing criminal investigation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In that case, the FBI denied records, because the case was under investigation, but the court ruled in favor of releasing the records, stating \u201cduty to cooperate does not imply that the requirement of IPRA must give way.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, the plaintiff received a $218,000 settlement.<\/p>\n

Majors wrote that \u201cthe Inspection of Public Records Act was designed to allow the public access to \u201cthe greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of public officers and employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also wrote that the law \u201crequires public bodies to provide all requested records immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foundation for Open Government files complaint with attorney general amid silence in officer-involved shooting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81290,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31025\/revisions\/81290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31025"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}