On Saturday, the Party for Socialism and Liberation denounced Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham's executive order to deploy National Guard troops to Albuquerque to assist police with ongoing public safety challenges.
Members from social justice organizations including Pete Guajardo from the Brown Berets were in attendance to speak on how sending the National Guard could be dangerous.
“Deploying troops in the streets of Albuquerque will not make our communities safer, it will only further intimidate and criminalize our people, especially Brown, Indigenous, Black, unhoused and impoverished,” he said.
He said what is being presented as a way to protect the community is actually a way of controlling and dominating.
“We do not need surveillance and suppression, we need investment in our people,” said Guajardo. “Support the root causes of crime in Albuquerque, such as poverty, homelessness, addiction and trauma.”
American Indian Movement member Deborah Jiron from Isleta and Kewa Pueblos spoke about her nephew Jamie Braveheart, who went to a South Dakota hospital ER seeking treatment for substance abuse and was shot five times by a police officer in the waiting room.
“That's the problem when you have this type of enforcement by the police, by the military, by anybody that threatens and makes you feel threatened, it's not a safe way to help our relatives,” she said.
Jiron said there are different ways of handling those in need and it starts with building trust.
Despite Albuquerque ranking high in crime for the past few years, the city has seen decreasing numbers in the first quarter of this year, with aggravated assault, homicides, shootings and robberies all down compared to last year.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
