Mistreatment, cover-up at jail
A man fired as an internal investigator at Denver’s jail, plagued by accusations for years of inmate abuse abuse, says he was ordered to make sure no one else saw a video of sheriff’s deputies walking a handcuffed, naked inmate through a hospital.
Denver television station KNNC quotes the investigator, Brent Miller, as saying Capt. Paul Ortega, who leads the sheriff’s internal affairs bureau, told him not to upload the video to a system that would have allowed others to see it. He said Ortega then told him interim Sheriff Elias Diggins had ordered the mistreatment covered up. Miller said he refused and was fired the next day.
KCNC said that after it began making inquiries, Stephanie O’Malley, Diggins’ boss as head of Denver’s public safety department, released a statement saying she had ordered another agency, the city police department’s internal affairs bureau, to investigate.
Miller worked for the Adams County sheriff for two decades before retiring and taking a job as a civilian internal affairs investigator in Denver. This month, he was assigned a complaint from Denver Health Medical Center staff about the treatment of an inmate deputies had transported. At some point, the inmate defecated on himself and his jail clothing.
Miller and a second investigator went to the hospital to obtain a video of what staff saw as inhumane treatment by deputies. Miller said he was approached by Ortega about the video when he got to his office.
Ortega “asked me if I had uploaded this video yet, and I told him I had not and told me, `Good, don’t do that because they’re making that go away,’” Miller said.
Miller said Ortega fired him the next day.
Number of violations in N.M. race unclear
Just a few months after announcing a task force to overhaul campaign finance practices in New Mexico, state officials are still not clear on how many violations are being investigated.
“We are currently in the process of compiling our list of candidates still out of compliance for referral to the Attorney General at this time,” Ken Ortiz, chief of staff for Secretary of State Dianna Duran’s office, said.
The Daily Times newspaper found Duran’s office only collected 4 percent of 2,000 fines imposed on candidates during the 2012 and 2014 elections. She waived 34 percent of the other fines and never collected another 62 percent.
N.M. grasshopper population may fall
The grasshopper population could be decreasing this year. It’s the latest data point in a trend that a researcher says has been skewed by climate change.
Dr. David Lightfoot has tracked grasshopper numbers for more than 25 years, but says climate change has thrown them out of whack over the past decade.
The grasshopper population used to be easier to predict, but now Lightfoot says he’s unsure what species will be abundant each year because the timing and amount of rainfall and increase in temperatures are having a big effect.
Associated Press
