Bernalillo County facing lawsuit, allegedly violated the law
By Julian Paras
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KOAT) — Bernalillo County is facing a lawsuit and is being accused of withholding information from the public regarding Metropolitan Detention Center records.
“Don’t we want to know that everybody is being treated equally? Don’t we know if there are bad apples that they can be found and rooted out?”
Executive director Melanie J. Majors is with the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, also known as FOG. She said Bernalillo County has questions to answer. This lawsuit is accusing the county of illegally withholding information about an incident at the Metropolitan Detention Center where an inmate died.
Attorneys filing the lawsuit Wednesday say there are also other times the county failed to provide records on time.
“We are alleging three different instances of the county’s non-compliance with its statutory obligation under IPRA,” FOG legal director Amanda Lavin said.
FOG says The Albuquerque Journal tried to request multiple records — but was denied. The Journal was looking into the death of an inmate at MDC. The inmate’s estate accused a former jailer of using excessive force, resulting in death.
MDC public information officer Candace Hopkins told KOAT in a statement, “The county will review the lawsuit and address it accordingly.”
“As far as we know, they are taking the position that they rightfully withheld everything that we asked for,” Lavin said.
She claimed MDC has improperly invoked the Law Enforcement Records exception. It gives law enforcement groups the right to deny access to certain documents under IPRA, otherwise known as the Inspection of Public Records Act. However, FOG is arguing MDC can’t do this, saying the jail is not a law enforcement agency.
“The hope is that we get the court to say this is not an acceptable interpretation of IPRA, and public bodies who are not law enforcement entities cannot be relying on this specific exception, which was only meant to apply to law enforcement and prosecutors,” Lavin said.
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