Column By Mike Bibb
Ordinarily, glitches in a state’s law enforcement and judicial system don’t regularly make front-page news. Police agencies and courts, like any government department, are susceptible to occasional faux pas.
That’s just the nature of most anything involving human participation and management.
However, except for California, whose government has gone well beyond logical reasoning, recent events in one of our neighboring states have become equally baffling.
Within the past month, the governor of New Mexico has dispatched the National Guard to assist the Albuquerque Police Department in controlling crime within the city—an indication that the bad guys are becoming more brazen, disruptive, and threatening public safety.
Also, in the past few days, the DEA conducted a large-scale fentanyl bust in Albuquerque in which hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, drugs, firearms, and vehicles were seized.
A magistrate judge and his wife in Las Cruces were recently arrested for harboring a Venezuelan gang member in their home. Details, other than the judge knowingly providing his residence as a refuge for the gangster and occasionally entertaining his friends, have gradually come forth.
I’m certain more incriminating information will be released as the FBI investigation progresses.
The latest law enforcement snafu involving several deputies in New Mexico’s Grant County Sheriff’s Department has been reported.
Grant County encompasses Silver City and the adjoining vicinity.
While big-time crime and international gang activity don’t influence the story, it is equally bizarre.
Believe it or not, the five main characters in this debacle consist of four county deputies and a baby rabbit.
The clamor began when the four deputies were on evening patrol in the Hachita area of the county when one of their patrol vehicles suddenly halted.
Wondering why, other deputies exited their vehicles and approached the officer who had made the initial stop.
When they encountered the deputy, they discovered the officer was holding a baby rabbit in his hands, and reported the little dude was sitting in the middle of the road, refusing to move.
Deputies began to laugh at the hilarity of the situation — a sheriff’s department patrol stopped in its tracks by an obstinate baby desert rabbit.
One of the deputies asked if he could hold the creature. “No”, the other officer reported, “you might hurt it.”
“No, I won’t,” replied the second deputy.
This conversation went back and forth until finally the second officer pulled his Taser and aimed it, allegedly, at the deputy holding the rabbit and demanded he hand it over.
Shortly after, the second officer hurled the tiny rabbit against his patrol vehicle with sufficient force to fatally injure it.
The other officers stood by, unsure of what they had just seen or why they had seen it.
This wasn’t the first time this same deputy had confronted the other. About 10 days before the rabbit episode, the officer who snatched the animal and threw it against the vehicle had also grabbed the other deputy’s cell phone in the office and then pointed his duty pistol at him when the officer tried to retrieve it.
What could be the motive for an adult sheriff’s deputy to act this way on at least two different occasions intentionally?
I’m no cop, but I don’t believe this is standard police behavior. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a story like this.
Adding to the craziness, the media has only recently reported on the incident. According to information from “The Grant County Beat,” May 5, 2025, these events happened last August 2024.
Following the press’ account, including information that the occurrence attracted the attention of the New Mexico State Police, the Grant County Sheriff released his handling of the affair, indicating his office did not condone the deputies’ conduct. Administrative measures have been taken involving the offending officers.
That would be the expected response, knowing the public’s exposure to the wacky handling of an abnormal county police event has suddenly ballooned into a story attracting state intervention.
The Sheriff, understandably, realizes the significance of his deputies’ screwups, particularly one as ridiculous and boneheaded as the killing of a baby rabbit for no apparent reason and threatening a fellow officer with a firearm.
There’s a reason other than, perhaps, the mental stability of the offending deputy.
On Feb. 14, 2025, a criminal complaint was filed in the Silver City Magistrate Court by Agent Justin Blacklock of the New Mexico State Police. The complaint states the offending officer was charged with four counts of aggravated assault upon a peace officer with a deadly weapon and one count of extreme cruelty to animals.
This latest narrative involving New Mexico law enforcement will, most likely, continue to be exposed. Leaving people to wonder if the state has nearly lost control of adequate policing in its largest city, a magistrate judge cavorting with foreign gang members in the state’s second largest city and county sheriff deputies quarreling among themselves, pulling guns on each other and purposely killing baby rabbits in the wild, then what should the public expect next?
I don’t know, but each succeeding story seems more astonishing than the previous one.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
