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Real News For Real New Mexicans.
The Chile Wire with Abe Baldonado. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Chile Wire. This week, I'm excited to introduce my guest, Rudy Mora. Rudy is a former state police officer and is currently a director for public safety for the Pueblo Of Acoma.
Abe Baldonado:And I am delighted to introduce my guest, Rudy. Thank you for coming on the Chili Wire. How are you doing today?
Rudy Mora:I'm doing wonderful, and thank you for having me.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. My pleasure. Is this your first podcast?
Rudy Mora:No. It's not.
Abe Baldonado:Awesome. So so you're a veteran on here.
Rudy Mora:Well, I wouldn't say a veteran, but it's not my first.
Abe Baldonado:That's terrific. Rudy, I got to ask you because we are the Chili Wire, red or green?
Rudy Mora:Red.
Abe Baldonado:Red? Awesome. That's two weeks in a row that we've had someone say red. So red red might be winning now. Usually, people are like Christmas.
Abe Baldonado:They don't want to pick a side, but now we're starting to see people pick a side here with our chili.
Rudy Mora:Yes. I agree and, you know, typically, it's kind of a complex question for me because if it's overall, it's red, but if I can't ever pass up a warm tortilla with chopped green chile
Abe Baldonado:fresh Oh, yeah. With with some butter, I mean, you cannot go wrong with that. That's the beauty of our state.
Rudy Mora:Yes.
Abe Baldonado:Well, Rudy, we're here today to talk about an issue that I think our state cares most about from what we've seen, and then that's crime. And you have years of experience with this as a state police officer. I'm sure in your current role as director of public safety for the Pueblo Of Acoma. But I wanna lean on you. How did we get here?
Abe Baldonado:It seems like crime has progressively gotten worse. Although we hear statistics nationally and also locally that crime has gotten down, it seems like all we ever hear about is crime.
Rudy Mora:Yes. You know, and historically, I've been in law enforcement since 1994 and there's always been crime. Right? Over the last decade or so, and I'd probably say starting with bail reform, you know, we started to see less and less of criminals being held accountable in New Mexico. And it's frustrating, you know, to see where we're at today and where we could have been if had we just, recognized the problem immediately that, it wasn't working.
Rudy Mora:And don't get me wrong, I believe everyone makes mistakes. You know, I've worked many years along Interstate 40 looking for highway criminal enforcement, drug smugglers
Abe Baldonado:Human trafficking.
Rudy Mora:Trafficking. You know, New Mexico is very unique with our vast highway system and our proximity to Mexico. Really makes us a prime target for drug cartels
Abe Baldonado:Absolutely.
Rudy Mora:Drug trafficking organizations. And in my role, I've arrested a lot of drug smugglers, gun smugglers, child pornography, you name it. Anything that can be smuggled on Interstate 40 is literally smuggled. And the vast majority of the people that I've encountered are good people that just made bad choices. Yeah.
Rudy Mora:You know, maybe a single mom that's living on the fringe of society, maybe the baby daddy's in jail and she needs to make some money. So here comes the gentleman saying, hey, drive this vehicle from Phoenix to Detroit. I'll pay you $1,500. You know? And that's how they get sucked into it.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. You know?
Abe Baldonado:So really, it's a larger criminal organization targeting some of our most vulnerable populations that are, like you said, on the fringe. You know, they're very close to hitting rock bottom or they've in fact already hit rock bottom. And they, you know, I guess, prey on those individuals to carry out the crimes or the drugs and, you know, everything that they want to push. They kind of leverage that in their favor.
Rudy Mora:Absolutely. And then you get folks that are struggling with substance abuse that get encountered a lot too, right? And they just get extorted for different types of things and it's sad, but the reality is is we have to make some changes here in New Mexico if we want to get on the path to at least be better. I live my life every single day that we don't have to be bad to get better. Right.
Rudy Mora:But I'm telling you, New Mexico, we're pretty bad right now across the board. And I sometimes I I look myself in the mirror and say, what can I do? You know? I look from the outside in. What can I do as public safety director now?
Rudy Mora:How can I be a little bit better, protect the community, make people more aware of what's going on in the world and how our decisions can ultimately affect the total change? Right? So many people get involved and they wanna start from the top down approach. You know, I start from the inside and work out. So I think everyone needs to look at a look themselves in the mirror, including our criminal justice system, and see how we can do better.
Rudy Mora:And, for the people of New Mexico, we deserve better.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. I I couldn't agree more, Rudy. And and I wanna go back to a point you made about bail reform because I think there's a lot of individuals that maybe aren't aware or not familiar with some of the changes that were made to our bail system, but ultimately, we've made it where we now we kind of created that revolving door of criminals being arrested but then let out because of cashless bail.
Rudy Mora:Yes. And, you know, and we're all guilty of that. I believe it was in I forget the year right off the top of my head that bail reform passed.
Abe Baldonado:I believe it might have been 2019, maybe.
Rudy Mora:2019.
Abe Baldonado:2020. Somewhere
Rudy Mora:around there. Exactly right. 2019. And and we all voted for it. Right?
Rudy Mora:It went out to vote. And and again, it's just one of those things that everyone voted for it and I'm not sure they knew what they were voting for. Right. And and don't get me wrong, I I am a firm believer in restorative justice. I talked about, you know, people making bad decisions.
Rudy Mora:Let's get them on the path. But what we have now is a failed criminal justice system where people are allowed to commit crime, enter a diversion program, whether it's substance abuse, behavioral health, and and then they're pushed aside. Right? But there's no consequences if they don't finish that diversion program. Right.
Rudy Mora:So, of course, you know, the criminal is going say, yeah, I'll do that diversion program. You know, they start their treatment program and they fall off the wagon and they're back to breaking into people's houses, stealing cars, whatever it is, right, just so they can feed that addiction. But there is no consequence because they didn't finish that program. And that is one area that I believe we can make an immediate change is hold those individuals accountable. If they want treatment and need treatment, let's provide it.
Rudy Mora:But the minute they fail, guess what? You need to have a consequence for that.
Abe Baldonado:Right. No, that makes plenty of sense. And you know, with a lot of the policy that we see go through our roundhouse, I I believe it is genuine and well intended, but I can also say that oftentimes it's genuinely wrong. It's the wrong policy. It's the wrong way to address the problem.
Abe Baldonado:And so a lot of times what we see are are patches. And I think with the bail reform, I think it was coming out of a place of compassion. Unfortunately, there were some unintended consequences with that. But we've also seen the civil rights act that passed, really put police officers and public servants in a tough place, our first responders. And, you know, and that was a trial lawyer thing.
Abe Baldonado:You know, we we've really recently learned that trial lawyers have a lot of influence in our state, but that's also one that put our police officers in a very tough predicament because now, we've stripped away qualified immunity. And I'd I'd love to get your thoughts on qualified immunity. And also, what does it mean? Like, if you're a police officer, what does that qualified immunity mean? And with stripping that away, what has it done now to our police force?
Rudy Mora:You know, that's a that's a very complex issue. You are absolutely right. Trial attorneys run New Mexico. Plain and simple. I ran for office in Senate District 10 recently and I took on a very strong powerhouse woman, Senator Katie Duig, who's a trial attorney and is a strong supporter of the medical malpractice, you know, roadblocks that we're facing here.
Rudy Mora:It's the reason why many of you in New Mexico are are having struggle finding a doctor, quite frankly. And this pivots right into what they planted with qualified immunity. Right? If you actually dig deep into the house bill four, you know, qualified immunity historically has been it's always been there and it's been a good thing if it's if it's practiced correctly. Right?
Rudy Mora:If I stopped you along I 40 and I did an unlawful search and I violated your Fourth Amendment rights and it was in gross negligence, well, of course, you'd go to court, you'd have your day in court and the judge would rule against likely against me and not grant me qualified immunity. That would allow you to come after me personally because I acted not within the scope of job, right, in the law. But if you really look at House Bill four, you I do that today and guess what? I'm still protected because all that bill did was allow you as an individual to go after the government, deep pockets Right. For $2,000,000 per person per incident.
Rudy Mora:So, in reality, it really doesn't affect me a whole lot. It just affects the taxpayer and it pads the wallets of these trial attorneys.
Abe Baldonado:Right. And it's not even about justice at
Rudy Mora:that point. It's not. But what it's done is the common person that's coming out of college or maybe high school or whatever whatever it is and they want to join law enforcement and they hear that word, oh, qualified immunity. They don't have qualified immunity. And it's it's been a big, black eye for law enforcement Because I can tell you, there are a lot of good officers out there every day that want to do the right thing and they may not even be truly aware, so they're second guessing themselves.
Rudy Mora:And we saw that with the Department of Justice coming with the Albuquerque Police Department. Right? I know many police officers that when they were when they policies came in and they were being heavily scrutinized, they decided they were no longer going to do proactive policing. If someone was breaking into your house and you call 911, I know this first hand because they told me, I am just going to take my time getting there, I will do the report, make sure nothing is no one is hurt or anything, but I don't want to encounter a bad guy because guess what, I'm going to have 15 people come over here with the use of force team investigating me. Yeah.
Rudy Mora:Literally reading me Garrity on the side of a road somewhere, you know, giving a compelled statement, you know. So those types of things are really have really hindered policing in New Mexico.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. It really ultimately puts a police officer in a situation where it's more paperwork and time and stress and just a lot of red tape to even address the issue because of what happens now if I address this criminal in action and have to confront them. Now I'm in a place where I'm going to spend weeks, probably if not months, just being investigated and having to give testimony as to what occurred.
Rudy Mora:Yep. Absolutely. I'll tell you a real quick story of a young APD officer. Obviously, I won't mention his name, but I've mentored him over the years since he was a young kid wrestling. And he was he's an orthopedic police officer.
Rudy Mora:He caught a burglar in progress, chased that individual, and long story short, caught the bad guy, had four felony warrants, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, multiple receiving, transferring stolen vehicles, arrested him, put him in jail, and that officer got thirty days off without pay for not turning on his body camera when he was in a foot pursuit. Wow. That criminal was out the next day. Wow. So, imagine what a punch to the gut that is.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah.
Rudy Mora:And he flat out said, he goes, I'm going to do my job but I'm not going to you know, things happen so fast in law enforcement, worrying about technology to turn it on. You know, I get it, technology is good but, you know, there's got to be some balance there.
Abe Baldonado:Right? Yeah. There there's this unrealistic expectation when your life is on the line that your immediate instinct is to turn on your camera versus defend yourself or protect yourself. And Yep. And I think we've forgotten that in society is that police officers like yourselves have families.
Abe Baldonado:You you have people that you wanna go home to, and your number one line of defense is to immediately protect yourself so you get home to your family, but also protect the community when able. But it's it's a very tough predicament to be in when you are punished for not doing something in the heat of the moment Yep. Where things have, you know, either intensified or whatever it may be, and you just didn't flip on your camera. And then now you go a month without pay, you think about rent, you think about, you know, your car payment, whatever it may be, just bills in general, you really put a struggle on that family now.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. It's it's difficult. And like I said, our criminal justice system needs to be revamped. I'll give you another incident that just happened recently. I may I was made aware of.
Rudy Mora:An officer went to court that had multiple charges against him for receiving, transferring, stolen vehicle, you name it, right? And he goes to his court date, the subject is still incarcerated which is a good thing, but they continued the case because the individual refused to come out of his cell. And again, they play this game because they know that if the officer, for whatever reason, something came up and couldn't make the court date, what happens? They get let go. They get let go, it's dismissed, right?
Rudy Mora:So they play this game over and over where, you know, at some point, you know, we're we're we're coddling these criminals. Yeah. You know, if they don't wanna get out of their court, add more charges, contempt to court. Imagine if you were subpoenaed to go to a court and you didn't show up. Guess what?
Rudy Mora:You can get hit with a contempt of court or at least in order to show cause.
Abe Baldonado:Right.
Rudy Mora:Right? So it's things like that that just make it really, really difficult for the men and women that are protecting us on the streets.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. And it's not just a speeding ticket where you can test, the officer doesn't show up, they let you go. I mean, we're talking about serious crimes here where, you know, they've committed, act of violence towards somebody, and now they realize, oh, here's the loophole. I just don't show up, and hopefully the officer doesn't show up, and they'll let me out of here.
Rudy Mora:You know, you're you're right. You know? And it's just so frustrating. In the course of my career in law enforcement, I've seen different theories come across from broken windows theory to you you name it. Right?
Rudy Mora:I'm a firm believer that in broken windows theory. Right? Like, you you stop the small level crime, it's gonna it's gonna prevent long term crime because what we've done now is just emboldened the criminal to to continue to grow and grow. And what's frustrating for me being now involved is somewhat in politics is that everything's politicized. Right?
Rudy Mora:Yeah. You hear that crime's going down. You know, you ask anyone on the streets, crime's not going down. I my next door neighbor three days ago, called me and said his car got broken and she wanted to see if my cameras captured the individual. They did.
Rudy Mora:Right? We can see the person breaking in. I get back from my trip and I say, hey, did you did you ever find out? He goes, didn't even bother to call the cops. They they don't show up.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. So, of course, crime's gonna go down if nothing's being reported. Right? Right. Well,
Abe Baldonado:and that's just it. And I and I was having that conversation recently as well as, you know, and I think that might have been something with our team here that we were discussing about. The mayor was touting that, you know, over the last decade, crime has gone down. But I said, well, is it crime has gone down or just acts of violence or crimes weren't reported because a police officer maybe, you know, someone didn't report it or the police maybe didn't show up. I I mean, I know here in the metro area, we see now where if you're in an accident, cops don't usually show up.
Abe Baldonado:Now they just tell you, file the police report with us, you know, we're not gonna send an officer out. I guess they look at it as this is just a petty thing that happened. It's an accident. Just file the police report, and we'll we'll take it from there. But, you know, they're not even sending cops out for for that reason.
Abe Baldonado:So if that stuff like that's not being reported, if there's an actual crime, there's not a police officer to report it, then, yeah, I think your statistics go significantly down because I think people have lost hope now. They're like, man, nothing's gonna happen. Yes.
Rudy Mora:And you know what? And this goes to anyone that's ever taken a course in statistics. Right? Bad data in is bad data out. Right?
Rudy Mora:We call that dirty data. And as a taxpayer, I I have to question the data that's there because I've heard and I've from individuals say that, you know, they're very suspicious, especially that online reporting. Mhmm. I had an individual tell me that he reported his car had been broken into. No offender information, so the police department said, hey, just file an online police report.
Rudy Mora:Need it for your insurance. That that will suffice. So he did. And he's a former law enforcement officer. When he looked on the UCR code offense, the officers have most people don't understand what a it's uniform crime reporting that gets reported to the FBI.
Rudy Mora:They have different sets of codes. Right? And I can know them off the top of my head, but auto burglary would have a specific code. Well, when he printed that report, the UCR code translated to incident only. Oh.
Rudy Mora:So that doesn't get reported as a crime to the FBI. Right. So that tells me again, potentially, possibly bad data in. Right?
Abe Baldonado:And And so I also think about is a lot of it that someone hasn't gotten charged. Yep. So if someone's not charged, there's no crime.
Rudy Mora:Right.
Abe Baldonado:So if they're not convicted, no crime.
Rudy Mora:And that's one thing that you hit the nail on the head there is when are we going to ever have a victim centric approach to solving crime? We everyone talks about victim centric approach when it comes to sexual assaults on women, which I'm I totally agree. But why where are the victims in all these other incidents and crimes that are occurring? And I've heard many people say, just like you said, oh, there's no crime because no offender is. Well, no, there's a crime because there's a victim there.
Rudy Mora:Right. You know? And sometimes the victim is a state, you know, the government itself in certain incidents. But it doesn't matter. But for the most part, a lot of these crimes that are going unreported, people are just fed up, they're frustrated because they either don't get the response they feel they deserve.
Rudy Mora:And if they do get the response, nothing happens. Right? There's no follow through. And I'm a victim of that. A couple of years ago, had a home invasion.
Rudy Mora:I was and they broke into my home. They were they didn't realize that someone was home. My son startled them. They fired a weapon inside the house to break a window to get out. And, you know, I saw little to zero investigation on that case, and we have surveillance video of the individual breaking into our house.
Rudy Mora:You know? Recently, they've recovered one of my, commemorative, weapons that was stolen. Right? I'm a collect commemorative state police weapons, and before the public gets mad, why would you leave a weapon out? There was no firing pin in it.
Rudy Mora:I disabled it, right, just for display only. But the Albuquerque Police Department found that weapon recently. And again, no follow-up. Know, I was told the person that bought the firearm went to a police officer and said, hey, I I bought this weapon at a party for $500. It I I don't know.
Rudy Mora:It's a really nice gun. It's engraved with state police. It's it's got to be stolen. Sure enough, was stolen and you would think that you have someone that's turned in a weapon that that person would typically, know, in my line, work long for that's a suspect. Let's you're in possession of a stolen firearm.
Rudy Mora:You know, how I don't really care how you came into contact with it, but let's follow through with it. And it was just like, okay, you got one of your weapons Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:Who'd you buy it from?
Rudy Mora:Yeah. Who'd you buy it from? Let's go talk to them, you know. And so I I see that as a a victim, very frustrating. So I can only imagine and I try to look at the whole situation, right, because I've been on both sides.
Rudy Mora:But imagine someone that's just on one side and, you know, they just get a very sour taste in their mouth for for law enforcement and their response.
Abe Baldonado:Well and we've also created this society where it doesn't help when you have a group of people saying defund police. And to me, that's become problematic is there's this movement now to make police officers the bad people when in fact they are are public servants. They go into it for the right reason. I'm sure you can go back and remember what made you wanna become a police officer, and I bet you it was to serve and protect you Mexicans, protect your family, protect your community, and that's what it's about. But now we have these groups that are saying, defund police.
Abe Baldonado:And when you start rhetoric like that, it puts police in a tough position, but it also puts the public in a tough position where now they either don't trust police or they just become I I feel like in New Mexico and specifically Albuquerque, people have become very desensitized to crime, that it's just another day in Albuquerque, and that's unfortunate.
Rudy Mora:Yes. It's very unfortunate. And it just we live in a world where again, I'm probably I'm a little biased here when I talk about the media, you know, and the media is just
Abe Baldonado:Well, people don't get the whole story.
Rudy Mora:They don't get the whole story.
Abe Baldonado:They don't get the whole story anymore. They get the sound bites of, oh, this is controversial. We gotta just share this one clip. I'm sure on our podcast at some point, we'll be a victim to Abe said this. Well, you didn't give the whole context of the conversation, you know, and that's the problem today.
Abe Baldonado:And that's the problem even I think about our youth is you really got to do some research, and you got to be able to critically think. You got to think for yourself, but you also can't just believe everything at face value. There's a lot of hearsay, he said, she said, and it's important to do your research and actually get context if something is said. If the media says, so and so said this. Okay.
Abe Baldonado:There's the one sentence. But what was said in the entire what was, you know, was there an argument to be made? Was it, an example, that was trying to lead to a solution? And that's, to me, the biggest problem that we see is that a lot of stuff in the media just gets cut out. But sorry for interrupting, but you just you hit something that I'm like, yes.
Abe Baldonado:People do not get the full story.
Rudy Mora:Don't get the full story. You know? And, you know, reminds me of my study days. You know? It's like I'm living yellow journalism.
Rudy Mora:You know? I think the recent study, I think it was on KQRQE, you know, where, you know, the media is less trusted than they've ever been.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. We don't have the Walter Conkreichs of the world anymore. Like, you don't have Walter Conkreich.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. And, you know, I just encourage people to go out there. If you hear something really validate it.
Rudy Mora:Right? You know, we have legislators now, you know, just recently called law enforcement ICE and KKK.
Abe Baldonado:That that is wild to me. Like, that and the fact that they're not held accountable for rhetoric like that, like, that is crazy.
Rudy Mora:It's crazy. And, you know, it's it is really sad. I'm really glad Farmington police chief Hebe spoke up the way he did. He was actually present during that committee hearing. And that's just totally uncalled for, you know.
Rudy Mora:You gotta remember, these men and women are just simply doing their job. Mhmm. You know, they're doing their job. And I get it. Immigration is a very, very complex issue.
Rudy Mora:We're built on immigration, right? But, you know, there's a right way to come into The United States, you know, and I know many people that have done it, you know. New Mexico is one of a few states that allow, you know, non citizens to become police officers, you know. Of course, you have have your work permit and be in the process for it, but, you know, you know, there's a pathway, let's just do it right. But let's not demonize these individuals for literally doing their job, you know, and
Abe Baldonado:so Well, and, you know, that that's the beauty of America. Immigration is a beautiful thing. But I think the conversation I've had with individuals lately is there's a difference in immigration and border security. And somehow we've tied them in together where they do connect in some places, but to me, security is a whole different issue than immigration. We want a healthy and very prosperous immigration system.
Abe Baldonado:We do want that. But we also have to look out for our border security because there are bad actors who will take advantage of a president or a group of politicians that say open borders and they hear that. And, you know, there are people who want to come here for the right reasons. They're escaping violence from other countries. They want safety here in America, which they believe that that we're safe, but we're not because our crime is ridiculous here as well.
Abe Baldonado:Albuquerque is on the list with places in Colombia, you know, in the top 20, which is crazy to think that, you know, Albuquerque is right there with some of the most dangerous places on earth. We're talking the entire world. And you have people who wanna come here for safety, but you have the bad actors who see an opportunity to also get in as well and create you know, we in New Mexico, we'd say mal, you know, to create mal.
Rudy Mora:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:And that that's unfortunate. And so there needs to be a serious conversation. And I think any reasonable person will tell you that they understand immigration is is a good thing. It's not a bad thing, but border security is also very important. We need to know who's coming into this country.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. I agree with you. You know, I've I talked with many years with New Mexico Tech with their border security program. That's kind of what my, you know, area of focus is. You know, I've worked with Sandia Labs all over the West Balkans talking about border security.
Rudy Mora:It's not just here in The United States. Every other country has border securities of some sort. Right?
Abe Baldonado:Mexico right now is protesting the folks traveling from Honduras and Latin America coming into Mexico. They're protesting them, and I'm like, hey. But America protests. You're mad at America. But even in Mexico, they're protesting the folks that are also immigrating to their country.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. Absolutely. You know, it's just it's all in in context. Right? You know, it's the reason why people put fences around their yards.
Rudy Mora:It's the reason why they lock their doors, you know? Yeah. Know, it's not that we don't want people to come visit or whatever, but we want you to be respectful to our property. It's no different than that.
Abe Baldonado:We love our privacy.
Rudy Mora:We love our privacy, right? And, you know, we can't ever forget because we are a border state, it's extremely challenging. So I love the fact that you brought up border security because I believe in a very layered approach to border security. Right? We have to secure our southern border, plain and simple, you know, just for the simple fact of humanity because I've been down there.
Rudy Mora:I've seen how women are being extorted down there. People are being Children. Children. You know? And it's it's sad, you know, to see what happens.
Rudy Mora:You know, I I saw an article where people were outraged because doctors were without borders, were providing condoms along the Venezuelan trail. Right? Well, don't understand why they're doing that. So imagine you're a man and you bring in your family with a wife and just say three daughters just for a better life in America. Right?
Rudy Mora:We want that. We want to help them out. But they're have a choice as they go through these if people don't know in the drug cartels, they control particular areas of Mexico, and each plaza has a plaza boss. And a plaza boss is like a lieutenant, for example, within the cartel, and they control anything that goes in in that plaza. Right?
Rudy Mora:And so if you're gonna go through his plaza, you're gonna get taxed. Right? You're gonna get you're gonna pay with something. And that's why they were providing those condoms. Right?
Rudy Mora:Because guess what? They're gonna rape your wife. They're gonna rape your daughters, or you don't get through. So imagine having to make that decision.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. As a parent. As a parent.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. As a husband. I can't even imagine that. Right?
Abe Baldonado:And these are the horrific stories that I think people don't hear about. And it and it's it's, you know, it's saddening, but it's also enlightening to hear from people like yourself who have experienced this and are aware of these situations because I think the regular public, out of sight, out of mind. But then you have folks like yourself who have worked in this area, and to hear that story is just sadding. I couldn't imagine as a parent to give your child away to some random man just so you can get through.
Rudy Mora:I know. It's it's it's sad. I'll tell you another story. You know, I worked Interstate 40. I have a lot of experience in arresting drug trafficking organization, drug smugglers.
Rudy Mora:And and one particular year, I arrested a police officer from Nogales, Arizona, and he had 15 kilos of cocaine in a rental car. And, you know, I'll kind of speed through it just for the sake of time. But when I was interviewing him, I said, man, you're a police officer. How did you get caught up in this? And he, you know, he was sad.
Rudy Mora:He was crying and he said, let me tell you officer, he goes, I'm sitting on the border, little cafe where I have coffee every morning in my community and I see this well dressed Mexican man come across and he sits at my table and he hands me an envelope And he says, the Sinaloa cartel wants your friendship. So he opens up the envelope and it's filled with cash. He said at least $1,015,000 dollars and $100 bills. He closes the envelope, slides it across the table and says, I'm a police officer. I I I'm not gonna do this.
Rudy Mora:A little bit of time goes by. He's there at the coffee shop where we had coffee every morning with the locals. The same individual comes across, sits at his table, hands him an envelope, slides it across the table and says, do you want our friendship now? He opens up that envelope and there's a picture of his wife taking his kids to school.
Abe Baldonado:Wow.
Rudy Mora:So they're willing to pay him. He turned him down and now they were extorting him and he was having to do those runs on his days off every single week from Nogales, Arizona. They stop here in Albuquerque, get met at a hotel up here off I 25. They make the exchange and he take the money back for them. And, you know, just just to see how the criminal element, these drug trafficking organizations, how they extort people and what just to And good people.
Abe Baldonado:People who are well intentioned and
Rudy Mora:Yep.
Abe Baldonado:Trying to mind their own business and just create a life for their family
Rudy Mora:Yep.
Abe Baldonado:But are put into a predicament of yeah. And that's scary. I couldn't imagine someone saying, we have eyes on your wife, your children. You know, this is something that I think most people would really believe that would be in a TV show or a movie. Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:But when in fact it's actually real life, and to hear a real life story about that is just shocking.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. And it is. You know, you you feel for people. Like I said, I met good people. He's one of them.
Rudy Mora:Just made a bad choice. Right? But here in New Mexico, folks, if we don't make a change on and I'll just call it what it is. If we don't make a drastic change here soon, and this is with you guys going to the poll, doing your research, and and literally voting for the common good of New Mexico, nothing's gonna ever change.
Abe Baldonado:That's right. And, Rudy, not to shift too far, but one thing that we haven't touched, and I'd love to get your thoughts on juvenile crime. Like, is that something from when you started police work in 1994 to now, how have we gotten here? It seems like crimes, especially in younger individuals, is more common now than it probably ever has been. And is that something that you've seen that progressively it's gotten worse for juveniles now to be involved in some of the the crime?
Abe Baldonado:I mean, we see drugs, murder, and we we just I don't know. I feel like every time there's something in the newspaper that's regarding crime, somehow there's some young teenager tied to it.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. You know, I saw this many years ago coming. As I mentioned, my area of focus, expertise if for what for what it's worth is is drug cartels, drug trafficking organizations, border security. And we saw this years ago with the drug cartels recruiting young individuals. You see them at a young age with a cell phone back in the day, people as lookouts.
Rudy Mora:You know, they they it happens. Right? They start to indoctrinate their children, their criminals very, very young. And to even to the point where you see them indoctrinate their cigarios. Right?
Rudy Mora:They're they're they're assassins. And and there's there's psychology behind this. Right? They like to recruit their assassins at a very young age, know, eight to 12 year old where the mind's not completely developed, where there is no conscience behind going up to somebody and pulling that trigger.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah.
Rudy Mora:And I've had the opportunity with my training to interview Ose Carrillo. And he said the first time he killed somebody in Mexico was eight years old. Wow. And he walked up to the individual at a, you know, in a restaurant, walked right up behind him and shot him right behind the head. And he's has no remorse because he didn't know.
Rudy Mora:And he can't even he couldn't even tell me how many times he had killed somebody. But now he's trying to tell his story. He's in jail for life. Right? But to see what's happening and that's when we were really stressing an area of a training that we were doing.
Rudy Mora:It's called junior narcos. Right? They they they get the junior narcos indoctrinated young. They get them in the game. You see the lifeline.
Rudy Mora:You see the corridos. You see the Mexican music talking about, you know, shoot this, shoot that. Mhmm. Chapo Guzman, you know, we all know him. So the low end cartel had Narco corridos, you know, made out in his name, you know, and it's it's just something that's has it snowballed into what we're having now.
Rudy Mora:People see it on TV. They see the high life. They see the guns, the the gold chains, the money, the women. Right? And and it's just something that there's no accountability to where we're at right now.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. There's no accountability for a juvenile and that's why the cartels used it because they saw this many years ago. I can have I'll give you another incident, I have so much to talk about, but I was able to interview some an individual that was we caught him smuggling dope across the border down in Columbus. So many people don't know that people from Mexico across the border, they go to school down in Demi, New Mexico, and then they go back. Right?
Rudy Mora:So these school kids were paid $500 a day to carry a backpack full of dope on their school bus across the border, go up to Deming High School, drop it off, and then go back and then get paid $500 a day because they know that. One, the United States border patrol will say, oh, here comes so and so, they're coming to school whether they're in a school bus or whether they're in a car. Hey, there's there's Rafael. There's whatever. Come on through.
Rudy Mora:They see him every single day.
Abe Baldonado:Right.
Rudy Mora:Not knowing
Abe Baldonado:that And they're children. They they seem harmless.
Rudy Mora:They seem harmless. Yeah. And and that's how it just continues to snowball. And they know if they did get caught, there's limited information. They're not gonna do anything to them because they're a juvenile.
Rudy Mora:You know. I'm living that my life now with that, with my current role where we have juvenile offenders on the reservation and the tribes that we have no place to house them at all, you know. Again, you talk about defunding of Turquoise Lodge, right, one of the biggest treatment facilities for juveniles in New Mexico. You know, all these are playing into into what's happening now with juvenile crime. And and I get it, no one wants to to see juveniles locked up.
Rudy Mora:I I've been there, I've read the statistics, I've seen the research, you know, the more the juveniles locked up, the more likely they're going to recidivate, right? Get I get all that. At what point do we put a stop to it? Because I can tell you right over here at down the road on our juvenile YDDC, pretty much nothing but murders or attempted murderers in there right now. And imagine that, you know, twenty years ago, there were shoplifters in there.
Rudy Mora:Now, none of that's no one's in there unless you're a murderer or attempted murderer. Violent. Violent teens. And, again, it's just accountability. You know, me being a parent, I've known that if I let my kids get away with talking back to their mom, it was gonna probably snowball into them eventually hitting their mom.
Rudy Mora:Right. You know? And it's just that that reinforcement at at a very young age, what's gonna be what they're gonna be allowed to. What are the guardrails here?
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. What's the disciplinary action for and the consequences to your actions that of building that that, you know, growing up, if you did something, you knew you were gonna be punished for it. And that that's the way we need to take now for our youth that are committing these violent crimes is there needs to be a consequence. Because if we start putting consequences, then like you said, I think we start seeing where, you know, these organizations and, you know, just criminals in general aren't gonna be able to leverage youth anymore because now there's consequences to for their actions that they're not just gonna get a slap on the wrist like they're getting now.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. I agree. You know, we I was so glad to see the the individual that murdered the Uber driver get charged federally. Mhmm. You know?
Rudy Mora:Because as you know, you can kill somebody in New Mexico, you're max you're gonna get is thirty years with
Abe Baldonado:Well, I always tell people you're more likely to do longer time for killing a deer or an elk illegally Yeah. Than killing a person, and that's very unfortunate.
Rudy Mora:Yep. And, you know, a dog too? You know, you you hurt a dog and my gosh, you'll have all kinds of public support while you, you know, you neglected an animal, which don't get me wrong. I I trained dogs from that was my job with the state police, training police dogs. So I get it, but, you know, we're just I need to get focused.
Rudy Mora:You know, New Mexico is a beautiful place. I love this place. You know, I was, you know, I was traveling and I run across many states the last few days and, you know, I get into the land of enchantment, man, and it's beautiful. You know? Cross cross into the the Sandia Mountains and see the beautiful gosh.
Rudy Mora:It's gorgeous. It is. But then you go on to the streets of Pennsylvania and Central. My gosh. Where are we at?
Rudy Mora:You know, like, we're in a third world country.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah. Copper. I mean, if they're of copper, Zuni, those areas, I mean, it is Yeah. Very worrisome.
Rudy Mora:No. I agree. And, you know, one of those things that we have to we have to do is we have to address juvenile crime. I'm glad it's a hot topic right now, but I'm telling you right now with our current makeup of our state legislature, nothing's going to happen. Yeah.
Rudy Mora:We saw a special session here just recently. What did we accomplish? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Rudy Mora:You know, we had juvenile crime. We had so many things That
Abe Baldonado:mental practice. Things to take our state forward that they just failed to address.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. Failed to and we do it time and time again. And as a taxpayer, if you wanna know how much it costs, at least $250,000 for a special session to gather that.
Abe Baldonado:For two days. Yeah. For two days.
Rudy Mora:Yep. You know? And I just don't know what what's gonna happen. You know? Sadly, I'm looking probably to possibly retire out of the state.
Rudy Mora:You know? I love New Mexico, but But
Abe Baldonado:they tax your retirement here. There's no
Rudy Mora:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:There's no incentive to stay here.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. My my my you know, living on a fixed income when I finally retire is gonna go much further in other states, for instance, like Florida where there's no state tax, you know, or a state you know, it's just it's tough. My wife and I own small businesses. It's hard to do business here in New Mexico. You know, we we get taxed to the yin yangs, you know.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. We're we're literally slaves of tax and to think that years ago there was a our founding fathers were upset about a 2% sales tax. Yeah. Imagine what they'd be thinking now.
Abe Baldonado:Well, we don't teach kids anymore about the Boston Tea Party and what occurred there and, you know, the revolt against taxes and now it's just like, yeah, we just accept it. Yeah. And you're bad. If you believe in taking money from the federal government and keeping your money for you, you're now a bad person. Like, how dare you wanna keep the money that you earn for you and your family?
Rudy Mora:Yeah. And I just see that as being, again, no different than the and I'd probably say this slightly, no different than the cartels extorting people at their weakest point. You know? Sometimes you see political groups that will extort a certain faction of society to their benefit.
Abe Baldonado:Yeah.
Rudy Mora:You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't have all the solutions. I just know that we we live in a in a beautiful state and we deserve better. You know?
Rudy Mora:We we can be better when the states around us are are doing great. You know, you talk about education. My gosh. You know, it's it's so sad.
Abe Baldonado:We're we're we're last in everything good and first in everything bad, it doesn't have to be that way.
Rudy Mora:No. It doesn't. But it starts with holding people accountable. Yeah. There has to be law and order.
Rudy Mora:If not, you know, we're gonna be the next, skid row. We're already there in many next Portland. You know? It's it's just I
Abe Baldonado:think we could agree. We gotta hold our elected officials accountable too.
Rudy Mora:Yes. We do. And and that's one thing, you know, is our judges too. You know, they're usually, once they get in there, they just retain them, retain them, retain them. You know, that maybe has to be looked at as well.
Abe Baldonado:And people don't know anything about justices of the court because when you go to your ballot and you're like, do you wanna retain so and so? Most people don't know anything about them. Like, what have they done? How have they ruled on certain cases? Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:And if you don't know any of that, most the you just retain them, and it's like, well, are they doing a good job? Are they doing their duty to the court? I mean, we saw the magistrate judge in Las Cruces harboring a trend that our member.
Rudy Mora:Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:I mean, it's just it's wild to me, but you're spot on the need for judicial reforms also needed here in New Mexico.
Rudy Mora:You know, and it has to be addressed simultaneously with the criminal justice reform. You know, the we have to be better. You have to look like, you know, just common sense is where we at now? Is what we're doing right now working? I would have to say, no, it's not.
Rudy Mora:We need to shift gears and change. Yeah. You know? And back to what I said the way I live my life, don't be bad to get better, but my gosh, we're pretty bad right now in New Mexico. And, you know, I have been a grandpa now, and I I looked at my grandkids last night.
Rudy Mora:We were watching them and, like, man, I just kinda thought to myself, man, what world are we leaving you poor little kids to? You know?
Abe Baldonado:I I remember a time in New Mexico. I I grew up in a small town in Northern New Mexico, Las Vegas, New Mexico. And, I remember a time where it was community. You could sleep with your door unlocked in the night. I mean, it wasn't all too bad.
Abe Baldonado:And and and my wife and I joke about, you know, let's go back to the nineties. It was a little bit of a a better time and a a safer time. And, if we could just get back to that, it'd great. And, Rudy, you know, I I hope New Mexico changes sooner rather than later because I would love for you and your family to stay here where you built a life, you built a career, and not lose you to Florida and other states. Like, we lose so many people too.
Abe Baldonado:We lose so many of our youth to other states because of better opportunity, and better jobs, and we lose our retirees. You know, I think about my kids one day, you know, I want them to be around their grandparents. And, you know, if my parents up and decide to leave, I'd be very hurt that, you know, my grandkids are gonna have access to them. And so it's my hope that New Mexico changes for the better to keep people like you who who love this state and who have really thrived here but also dedicated your life to just trying to see a better place in New Mexico.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. And we, you know, I I do. And I I I believe we can be better, but we have to to make some some changes. You know, we have to look at everyone talks about a a data driven approach. Yeah.
Rudy Mora:Yeah. Use the data. Use the data. You know, our our system's broken here in New Mexico where someone commits a crime today because, well, say they have substance abuse. Right?
Rudy Mora:They get into a diversion program. Usually, they're issued off credits, 30 credits or thirty hours of of treatment. Anyone that's ever dealt with substance abuse in their families knows that thirty hours isn't enough. Right? So everything is based off of a client.
Rudy Mora:I know several nonprofits that have clients. Right? I have yet to interview or talk to a nonprofit that's treating our most vulnerable and saying, hey, I have Rudy Mora here and he's a success story. Yeah. Because Rudy Mora in our current system right now is client two twenty.
Rudy Mora:By the time I go through the entire criminal justice system, I'm back at it in another thirty days and I'm client 1,500. Wow. Because it's the system's broken Where we should have, okay, I broke a crime. I may I committed a violation, broke the law. I go into treatment program.
Rudy Mora:If I didn't finish it, I go to jail. And in jail, they have a treatment facility. I mandate, now I'm gonna make you get the treatment. You're to get job skill training, you're going to get your treatment, you're get your education, get your high school diploma, we're going to train you. Okay, now we transition to getting you with a job.
Rudy Mora:We offer a tax credit to an employer. Hey, hire Rudy Mora and don't and give him the credits, give him the ability where I am not having to make a decision, do I show up to work today or do I go to my treatment? Because guess what, they are going go to work every day and they are going to miss their treatment and we fail them again. So, say, hey, employer, I am going to go ahead and give you a credit so you can continue to pay Rudy Moore while he gets his treatment, come back to work and then finish off the day. And then we get to the point, okay, we find you housing, you know.
Rudy Mora:And we and we follow them all the way through the entire circle, right? To the point where they're now solid, where they're now becoming the teacher, helping other people. And that's how you grow a complete cycle of recovery. Yeah. Right?
Rudy Mora:It's because the best way to teach is to teach through your experience. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. And but we have to have the support system.
Rudy Mora:Meanwhile, these non profits are getting funding based off of just clients. Let's make a simple twist there and say, hey non profit, I'm going to give you funding based off your success stories.
Abe Baldonado:Right. Right. We're going build some accountability into Yeah.
Rudy Mora:And if you only have 10 success stories, well guess what? You're going to get funding for 10 people and and we're going to continue to grow on that. Because I tell you right right now, I'd rather have one one success story and give them a million dollars than 4,000 clients
Abe Baldonado:And give them a million dollars.
Rudy Mora:And give them million dollars Yeah. For for nothing in return. Right? That's right.
Abe Baldonado:Rudy, great solutions. Thank you so much for joining the ChiliWire. I greatly appreciate your stories, your experience that you've shared with us today, our viewers. And, we hope you stay in New Mexico. We hope that you continue providing solutions and ideas, and because that's really the way things get done.
Abe Baldonado:And I hope more people hear what you said today, about, you know, hey. There's ways that we can do this. There's ways that we can actually bring recovery to our criminal justice system and have folks actually prosper from bad decisions that they made to actually being participants in society and, you know, working and, you know, providing for their families. And there there's an opportunity there. We just have to talk about these ideas.
Abe Baldonado:So, Rudy, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your service, to our great state, and thank you again for joining the Chile Wire.
Rudy Mora:Well, thank you for having me. Had a great time. Thank you. Yeah.
Abe Baldonado:My pleasure. Well, y'all, that's it for this week, and we'll see you next time on the Chile Wire. Hi.