New Mexico Democratic Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Crime
“The thing about Española, it’s been generational. It’s not a secret that we’ve been dealing with drug-related crimes.”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) declared a state of emergency over crime in Rio Arriba County, the City of Española, and surrounding Pueblo areas.
The three areas requested the declaration due to rampant crime. From Lujan Grisham’s press release:
The emergency declaration comes as police calls in Española and surrounding areas have more than doubled in the past two years. Police dispatches to businesses in the area have quadrupled in the same period. Rio Arriba County currently has the highest overdose death rate in the state, with residents struggling with addiction to fentanyl and other illicit substances.
“When our local leaders called for help to protect their communities, we responded immediately with decisive action,” said Gov. Lujan Grisham. “We are making every resource available to support our local partners on the ground and restore public safety and stability to these areas that have been hardest hit by this crisis.”
Executive Order 2025-358 authorizes up to $750,000 in emergency funding for the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to coordinate response efforts and provide resources to affected communities.
Lujan Grisham stated that “homelessness, family instability, and fatal drug overdoses” contributed to the increase in crime.
The decision thrilled local enforcement, but the crime has been awful for decades.
“The thing about Española, it’s been generational. It’s not a secret that we’ve been dealing with drug-related crimes,” Chief Mizel Garcia, Española Police Department, told KRQE.
Garcia said the department has about 30 officers, but needs more to handle the volume of calls.
“A lot of the time, funding or the resources are not available for us, so we’re really looking forward to meeting with the governor’s office and the other three entities to see how we’re gonna best utilize that funding,” Garcia added.
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Comments
Sounds like NM can use the National Guard.
Sounds like New Mexico can use a new Governor. This is the one who was trying to outlaw the Second Amendment.
I don’t see this as a good thing at all. I don’t think she’s emulating Trump in DC, she’s trying to undermine him. She’s saying if he can do it in DC I can do it too, but her only interest in states of emergency is to increase her power. I hope everyone here remembers her shenanigans just a year or two ago when she tried to have a “crime emergency” in Albuquerque, and use it as an excuse to ban guns there. That didn’t go off so well, but she tried her best. I haven’t seen anything about gun restrictions with this emergency, but I don’t trust her.
After the draconian lockdowns and law enfarcement actions taken during the COVID scam, I believe you are right. A power grab. Nothing more.
That and deflection from the corruption in law enforcement especially Albuquerque
She’s an AWFL to be sure and not shy about introducing totalitarian methods (Covid) and definitely is an enemy of individual liberty as you correctly pointed out with her failed gun grab attempt. In fairness crime in NM and Albuquerque Metro in particular is very bad. Funneling some resources $750K to the small community of Espanola to assist will probably help. She’s already been burned on her gun grab attempts and folks are alert to it. In addition the NM Constitution is very clear about firearm rights, IMO stronger on firearm rights than the US Constitution and even precludes political subdivisions from attempting their own restrictions ‘in any way’. That said she is an AWFL with a bad history and a penchant for
totalitarianism so while I don’t think she’d be dumb enough to try banning firearms again, she might be goofy enough to do it.
“She’s already been burned on her gun grab attempts and folks are alert to it.”
But it’s not stopping her. For two years in a row now, she has called the adjourned legislature back into session, solely to consider her shopping list of “must-pass” gun bans. The big bad ones never pass, but every session she gets a couple nuisance ones approved, moving the Overton little by little. She has a obsession with guns. If she paid half as much attention to actual crime, she wouldn’t have nearly the problem she has now.
On another blog I frequent, a NJ resident commenter writes that the local presstitutes are feverishly penning excuses as to why Michelle calling out the NG is a Totally Different Thing than Trump calling out the NG — but not even the local Democrats are buying it.
Henry,
To be clear I don’t trust that she wouldn’t keep going but I don’t see how she could expect to play the ’emergency’ card again in another attempt at a gun grab. The NM Constitution protects individual liberty keep and bear arms not just for security/personal protection but also specifies hunting, recreational use and any other lawful purpose. That’s pretty tough to overcome with a fair minded Judiciary….which might be another issue.
When I lived in El Paso I had a couple rental ‘cabins’ in Ruidoso for several years and had zero issues. Lots of open carry in Lincoln County and truck guns common, though South/Central NM is far safer and far more Red to Libertarian leaning than elsewhere in NM.
(Did I type NJ? Meant NM, of course!)
When I was considering moving to NM, there were no licenses and the law was that you could carry open or you could carry concealed, but if it was concealed it had to be unloaded. Astoundingly impractical, but it’s possible a lot of people’s behaviors gelled in that period.
“Gun control”
Gun control is really important. Proper sight picture, firm and proper grip, smooth application of the trigger. Oh, and keep your finger off the trigger until is pointed at the target/bad guy. And use a holster that properly covers the trigger.
She is the embodiment of the scorpion trying to convince the frog to Uber her across the stream.
She’s a nut. she got sued and paid settlement for pouring pitcher of water on a man’s crotch and abusing him sexually in front of a room full of people.
May the crime be rampant and unstoppable. May the state live in the muck and mire that they have created.
If the left can wish bad things on conservatives, I wish them the same in spades.
And not a dime of taxpayer money. Let the people who voted for this pay for it out of their own pocket. You break it, you buy it.
The issue is not the state of emergency. The issue is what she does with it. If she sends in the Guard and the State Police and clamps down on crime, good. If she finds a way to send away the vagrants, hobos and bums, good. If she finds a way to deal with the drug-dealing, good.
But I suspect her goals are different.
It was a state of emergency that caused the brouhaha over gun restrictions she imposed.
If it really is a tribal area, there’s a white-guilt peer limit beyond which she dare not overreach.
Ok settle down. Not much will happen. Cartel territory. Lots of locals on the payroll.
Not so much cartel territory. I live in a neighboring county and have to pass through Rio Arriba/ Española regularly. It’s high poverty and heavily democrat. They grew up with stories about how the federal government saved them during the depression and the biggest source of current jobs is fed/state government. Drug use has always been an issue, first Heroin and now Fentanyl. They also suffer from having homeless people with no ties to that area, given free bus tickets from Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. My county is seeing the same problems, When they opened up a limited use shelter, our homeless pop increased. When they opened up a 365 day a year shelter, it exploded. The Blue Bus, or North Central Regional Transit authority offers free rides from Santa Fe to Taos including Los Alamos and the northern Pueblos. It’s really easy to get rid of your problems when you can put them on a free bus and promise they’ll get goodies at the end of the rainbow. We have shopping carts littering vacant lots and piled up on sidewalks and the town decided that problem would be fixed, not by punishing the people stealing the carts but by punishing the grocery stores. The carts have to be picked up the moment they’re abandoned… BUT, if a homeless person is actively using those carts, the stores aren’t allowed to retrieve them. That’s what life is like in a blue hellscape.
$750,000 isn’t a lot of money these days. Probably wouldn’t train the number of police officers that are needed in the understaffed departments in the area.
It would seem the Trump effect pushed NM Governor to deal with their own enforcement issue.
Who’s next, Hochul?
Repeat after me: craphole
fatal drug overdoses” contributed to the increase in crime.
Ummm, how does people dying by their own hand increase crime? Desecration of a corpse?
she wants to tempt trump to bring her into the national spotlight so she can create the typical lefty need for DRAMA
It turns out the Española NM is situated right between the cities of Santa Fe (~20 miles south) and Taos (~40 miles north). Both of these cities are “sanctuary” cities. Perhaps the governor could see her way to remove that restriction to allow for better regional cleansing of the criminal elements.
She is an old-technology T-800 variant communist, the only model NM could afford. But don’t underestimate her, or them. They learn, in their twisted way. Sure, the “improved” shape-shifting T-1000 models are significantly more effective, and very much entrenched, at every level, in every institution, throughout Western Civilization.
The main thing to remember is they’ll never stop.
Until they’re all good communists.