Month: October 2015
Lapel camera shows repeat offender run down by APD truck
Warning: The video above contains some graphic images and language. Viewer discretion is advised.
Lapel camera footage reveals an Albuquerque police officer purposely swerved and crashed into a man accused of trying to run over officers on several occasions in order to finally take him into custody.
On June 4, 33-year-old Danan Gabaldon was tracked by five Albuquerque Police Department officers in southwest Albuquerque. Two weeks earlier, on Memorial Day, officers shot at him after he was cornered in an apartment parking lot driving a stolen car. He escaped the Memorial Day incident.
And months earlier, in March, he was arrested after a high-speed pursuit in the South Valley in which he tried to hit BCSO deputies.
The afternoon of June 4, the officers who tracked Gabaldon made sure they apprehended him at any cost.
After months of waiting for public records requests for lapel camera video from the June 4 incident, APD handed over the footage Friday.
The footage was edited by APD to blur out undercover officers, but at times, the entire video is blurred. Another edit appears to speed up the lapel camera of an officer in an undercover truck as he swerves into Gabaldon, who was fleeing officers after they confronted him and shot at him in the stolen vehicle.
When the officers finally confronted him in the 8400 block of Camino San Martin SW, APD says he hit two undercover cars and at least two officers with the stolen vehicle. Officers fired bean bags at him as he fled, and bullet holes were seen riddling the stolen vehicle.
But despite the crashes, Gabaldon, a repeat offender, managed to get out and run. Officers are heard ordering bean bags and Tasers on him as he flees and telling fellow officers to “stay cool.”
But as he ran off, the officer in the truck took notice, hopped back in his vehicle, and ran Gabaldon down.
Once the video is slowed down, Gabaldon’s head can be seen smashing into the truck as it hits him.
A bystander’s video was also included in the public records release that shows the moments before Gabaldon was hit.
After he is hit by the truck, a different officer’s lapel camera shows officers using Tasers on him and one officer shoving his elbow into Gabaldon’s bleeding head as they try to arrest him.
It again raises the question of where the line is drawn with APD’s reigned-in use-of-force rules implemented in conjunction with an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, though Gabaldon was a repeat car thief with a history of trying to elude and harm police officers.
Gabaldon was charged with 12 felonies and four misdemeanors for the police attacks and faces further burglary charges for a separate incident.
On June 22, District Court Judge Briana Zamora revoked Gabaldon’s bond, saying he was a flight risk and dangerous. He had previously cut off a GPS ankle monitor. He was indicted by a grand jury for the March incident and entered a not guilty plea in that case.
He remains at the Metropolitan Detention Center on a no-bond hold.
This story was originally published at KOB.com
Sec. of State Duran faces new identity theft charges involving former state senator
A special agent for the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office filed a criminal complaint in First Judicial District Court Friday charging Secretary of State Dianna Duran with felony identity theft for allegedly falsely identifying a former state senator as the treasurer of her 2010 campaign for Secretary of State and using his name on official documents.
The charges stem from a Sept. 27 article in the Santa Fe New Mexican in which former state senator Don Kidd, who Duran listed as treasurer for her 2010 campaign, told the reporter he had never worked in any capacity as treasurer for her 2010 campaign.
“If she listed me, she did it on her own,” Kidd told the New Mexican. “I didn’t sign any checks or pay any bills for her, and that’s what a campaign treasurer does.”
Kidd is the CEO and Chairman of the Board for Western Commerce Bank in Carlsbad. He served as District 34 Senator from 1993-2005.
Agents for the AG’s Office contacted Kidd after reading the New Mexican article. He told agents he had not worked with Duran since about 2004 when they served in the state Senate together.
Campaign reports for Duran’s 2010 campaign lists Kidd as her treasurer, but Kidd told investigators that the address and phone number listed were not his and that a Wells Fargo bank allegedly associated with his name in the report did not exist, as he had never had a Wells Fargo bank account.
Kidd did tell investigators he had contributed to the campaign but that that had been his only involvement.
AG’s Office agents say there were 10 campaign reports for Duran’s 2010 campaign that list him as treasurer, which Kidd again said was false.
Nine of the campaign reports were filed in 2010 and the 10th was filed in Oct. 2013, saying the remaining balance from the 2010 campaign would be transferred to Duran’s 2014 campaign account.
When the AG’s Office cross-checked the reports with bank statements, they found more than 100 transactions totaling more than $10,000 that were never listed as expenditures by her campaign, according to the criminal complaint.
When asked why he thought Duran would use his name as treasurer for her campaign, Kidd told agents, “I have no idea. I just don’t know, that’s amazing.”
Duran also faces 64 separate charges related to her campaign finance reports, including embezzlement and fraud, after a separate investigation by the AG’s Office revealed she allegedly transferred thousands of dollars from campaign accounts to personal accounts while gambling at state casinos.
She has pleaded not guilty to the 64 charges.
The AG’s Office filed a motion in district court late Friday that seeks a penalty enhancement in that case because of her status as a public official.
She could pay up to $500,000 in fines if the motion is granted and she is convicted.
This story first appeared at KOB.com