UNM to implement cameras within next few weeks
Lawmakers voted Monday, Feb. 24 to advance a bill that would explicitly require university police departments to use body cameras, just over a year after the Daily Lobo revealed a loophole in a state statute.
The 2020 statute, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces), requires law enforcement agencies in New Mexico to use body cameras. While it does not explicitly exclude university police departments, it also does not explicitly include them.
“I thought we had taken care of the issue at the time,” Cervantes told the Daily Lobo. “But I learned from press coverage over the last year or so that UNM, my own alma mater, was refusing to comply with the state law — taking the position that the law, because it did not mention universities specifically, didn’t include them.”
In August, the University of New Mexico announced that the department would obtain the devices — more than four years after the original statute took effect. The cameras will be implemented within the next few weeks, according to UNM Police Department Lt. Tim Delgado.
The new Senate Bill 505, also sponsored by Cervantes, would add police departments of post-secondary institutions to the list of law enforcement agencies that are required to have body cameras. The Senate Rules Committee passed the bill 5-4 on party lines after amending it.
Prior to the amendments, the bill would also have strengthened the presumption that police officers who fail to comply with their department body camera policies act in bad faith. This part of the bill was amended to remove the “bad faith” language after Republican senators raised concerns that it could unfairly punish officers who accidentally do not activate their body cameras.
The amended bill would strengthen the presumption that officers who don’t comply with their department body camera policies engage in “intentional spoliation of evidence.”
During the hearing, Cervantes said that UNMPD’s interpretation of the 2020 statute was the catalyst for the new bill.
“UNM Police Department on campus took the position that they were not captured by this law, despite the fact that state police, counties, cities, all were captured,” Cervantes said. “But UNM incredulously took the position that they were not within that definition of law enforcement, and so did not comply with the law.”
In a March 2024 interview with the Daily Lobo, UNM Police Department Lt. Larry Bitsoih said university police were exempt from the law. Cervantes told the Daily Lobo this wasn’t the intention.
“Even more disturbing was not only that they were not using body cameras, but they felt they didn’t have to comply with the body cameras,” Cervantes said. “Since then, they’ve been working to correct it, but they’re behind the rest of the state.”
During the hearing, no public commenters spoke in favor of the bill. The four police chiefs who spoke in opposition to the bill mentioned specific objections to the part about bad faith presumption, and some mentioned their support for university police using body cameras.
Sen. Liz Stefanics (D-Cerrillos) said during the hearing that university campuses expect safety and transparency.
“I see this as a safety measure,” Stefanics said. “It’s a message to the public, students, faculty, staff that they’re going to be protected.”
Western New Mexico University was the only university in the state that did not have body cameras or plans to implement them as of August 2024, according to KOB.
”It’s important, because we’re law enforcement officers also,” Lt. Delgado said. “It helps people get a perspective of what really goes on.”
