There is no truth to the rumor that the Albuquerque Police Officers Association threw a parade for Chief Mike Geier upon learning he had been forced out as ’Burque’s top cop.
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Mad Blog Media 
September 10, 2020 at 2:14 pm |
He didn’t last too long. But will the Who song rule the day? (Meet the new boss, same as the old boss….).
I got into a minor snarkfest with my better half after the James Boyd shooting. She excoriated Chief Gordon Eden but I read that Eden had only been chief for about a month when that happened. No change is instantaneous, esp. when you are trying to change an institutional culture of 1,000 people, all the while you are being shot at by armed lunatics.
September 10, 2020 at 2:22 pm |
Thing is, down here the cops are mostly on the trigger side of the shootings. As far as I know, the last cop to get shot in the line of duty in ’Burque got popped by a brother officer.
The bad guys, of course, drop plenty bodies. But they’re not shooting cops. Not at the moment.
September 10, 2020 at 2:49 pm |
Daniel Webster, same year. Shot by Davon Lymon. I guess my point is that there are so many bad guys running around packing heat in Albuquerque that it must make cops a little edgy.
September 10, 2020 at 3:08 pm |
Oh, shit, yeah. Edgy ain’t the word for it. Every traffic stop or domestic dispute a potential O.K. Corral. And then you get the extra added attraction of the ongoing territorial shoe-pissing among the local flatfeet, sheriff’s deputies, stateys, and feds. A nun reaches for the rosary around here, she’s liable to get five in the 10-ring.
September 10, 2020 at 3:40 pm |
I’m not trying to make too many excuses for the trigger happy individuals in blue, but it seems to some degree the mindset of the cops reflects the environment they have to work in. We saw that in Vietnam, Anbar Province, etc. And Albuquerque. If you work in a rough place, its got to put your mind in a bad place.
September 10, 2020 at 3:56 pm |
I get it, and am sympathetic, but still, it says “To Protect and Serve” on the side of the cop car, not “Yell ‘Halt’ Three Times Fast and Shoot to Kill.”
It’s the job they signed up for. You want to be a cop in Mayberry, move there. I expect the competition for Barney’s job is fierce, though.
September 10, 2020 at 4:00 pm
Funny you should mention it. I used to work with the PD in Los Alamos on road safety stuff when I was T Board chair up there. We had one cop who took the job up there who had previously woorked for APD. I asked him if he liked the calmer environment. He said no, he was bored, but the money was good..
Well, not a good sign.We don’t need Rambo cops.
September 10, 2020 at 4:14 pm
Some dudes actually like getting in the shit. I knew guys who loved a good barfight, and would start one if nobody else could be bothered.
None of this is new. Fifty years ago ol’ Joe Wambaugh was writing about what he called “black glove” cops, the kind of dudes who shook down businessmen on their beats, wore sap gloves, and carried throwaway pieces to plant on the stiff in case a shooting proved problematic.
Who knows what the percentage of black gloves to honest bluesuits is? It’s like anything else, I guess. The bad encounters stick with you.
The one time I got tossed in the clink was good policing. The cop thought my friends and I were acting like drunken assholes, which we were. We got a night in the cooler and that was the end of it.
September 10, 2020 at 5:21 pm
Yep. I remember reading Serpico during an NROTC summer cruise about bad cops and bag men. I’ve been lucky. Maybe because I’m a honky. But even when I was a greaser on a motorcycle in my twenties, I seemed to luck out on cops.
The one night I coulda been tossed in the can I was going through the Big D with my first spouse and took it out on the road with the MC, tearing ass between cars at very high speed on a busy Long Island highway. Eventually saw the blue lights behind me and figured it was stupid to try to run the cop so I pulled over.
The Suffolk Co. Sheriff Deputy said something along the lines of “I’ve scraped enough of you assholes off the road for doing shit like that. I’ll make you a deal if you keep your word. You promise never to pull shit like that again and I’ll write you up up for 19 over instead of close to 90 in a 45 zone, so you can keep your license.”
I agreed. Not that I never take it up over the speed limit, but I’ve never been reckless and angry on a bike or car since that day in 1984. Cop may well have saved my life.So I have a soft spot for cops as long as they are not egregious.
September 10, 2020 at 2:31 pm |
Thanks for the laugh! I needed it! Only in NM.
September 10, 2020 at 2:32 pm |
The porta potty, not the police chief.
September 10, 2020 at 2:35 pm |
You have Herself to thank for that one. She beat me to it. I, of course, added the bonus snark.
September 10, 2020 at 3:22 pm |
Mayor Keller, “..time to hit the accelerator.” Politically related blah, blah, blah???
September 10, 2020 at 3:33 pm |
Some days I think everyone in public office is using it to run for another, better office. Albuquerque’s mayor wants to be governor (or representative, or senator); the Bernalillo County sheriff wants to be mayor; the governor wants a Cabinet job in a Biden White House. Etc.
I’m just guessing about Keller. But he has a lean and hungry look.
September 11, 2020 at 5:44 am |
Yep. And the cops have to work for these people, usually men. Can you imagine being in the secret service right now? Lord, as I lay me down to sleep, I pray to be assigned to Obama’s security detail.