Sep. 13—More law enforcement officers are on their way to the metro area to help address violent crime and assist local law enforcement agencies.
An unspecified number of New Mexico State Police officers will be assigned to Bernalillo County to conduct patrols, warrant roundups and narcotics operations, according to a news release from the agency, all with the goal of targeting violent crime and violent offenders.
State Police also will work with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and Albuquerque Police Department in this effort, saying officials are still developing an operational plan and will share more information when it is finalized.
The move was announced Wednesday in the wake of a federal judge granting a temporary restraining order earlier in the day against Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order suspending the right to conceal and open carry firearms in public spaces in Bernalillo County for 30 days. The order, issued Friday, was in response to recent shootings in Albuquerque that took the lives of a 5-year-old girl sleeping in a trailer in Southwest Albuquerque last month and an 11-year-old boy who was killed in a road-rage shooting leaving Isotopes Park on Sept. 7.
Lujan Grisham, in a statement on X, wrote that an increased State Police presence in Bernalillo County will focus on “arresting the hundreds of violent offenders with outstanding warrants still on our streets, and directing our healthcare system to immediately expand capacity to accept persons experiencing drug addiction and homelessness.”
The governor faced opposition to the order from Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, who both said in the days following the health order announcement that the ban would not be enforced by their agencies.
Allen, Medina and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller have called for a special legislative session to address gun crime in New Mexico.
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