Drone footage from Albuquerque, New Mexico recorded back in February showing two kids, ages 9 and 7, hiding from police while one of them holds a loaded gun, has gone viral across social media, but while gun control advocates are pointing to the incident as a reason for more restrictions to the right to keep and bear arms, the top cop in Bernalillo County, New Mexico says the incident is yet another example of how the state’s soft-on-crime policies are harming public safety.
Sheriff John Allen, who released the footage to the media, gave a remarkably candid interview to Albuquerque TV station KOAT this week to discuss some of the details of the incident, including why a recently adopted gun storage statute called “Bennie’s Law” might not be invoked against the parents of the two boys.
Faith Egbuonu: Is there any possibility that you all could charge either parent with Bennie’s Law?
BCSO Sheriff John Allen: Yeah, absolutely. We know the children had access to the firearm. We also know that the children knew where the ammunition to the firearm was located. Are we looking at Bennie Hargrove? Absolutely, we are. That’s why we want to make sure that we get a case to give to the district attorney.
Bennie Hargrove’s law has two things. So, if you’re looking and if it’s negligence of a firearm to save a child, but it also causes great bodily harm or death, that’s a fourth-degree felony. In this situation, it didn’t. So now that classification of the crime would go back to the misdemeanor level. On charging either the mom or the father.
So you have to prove, ‘did the parents negligently know that this firearm was not secure and the children had access to it?’ We know where the father is — in jail already on a domestic violence charge, and also, we will push forward on felon in possession of a firearm. That’s when we will start looking further into the Bennie Hargrove.
I would rather look at felon in possession a firearm, it’s a more serious charge, but this is what I’ve also told the legislature that I tried to get through in January. We’re allowing repeat violent offenders, and we’re empowering them, and they keep re-victimizing our community.
According to Allen, the family in question is well-known to local law enforcement, with at least 56 prior calls to the residence. The sheriff questions why the state has continued to release the two juveniles back into the custody of the adults at the household. Allen says the two brothers were released from police custody shortly after officers were able to take the firearm away from them, and were placed under the care of the Children, Youth, & Families Department, but the agency returned the boys to the home the very same day.
We released them. CYFD released them back to the home and that same day they ran away. So, I believe Friday they ran away in the morning, one child did and CYFD took custody of them again. Right now, currently today, I don’t know where they are because it’s either with CYPD or with the household or with another person within that family.
Egbuonu: What do you think would be best to help these children?
Allen: Stability. Education. Accountability of a learned behavior and how to go on a positive path. Something to where it’s just not back and forth and being passed from homes to different family members. Do they need to be together? Do the kids need to be apart for a while? They really need stability. And the number one is being pulled out of that household. We don’t have control over that. We can suggest it. That’s the responsibility of the state.
The culture of New Mexico has always been coddling a criminal. Now, I’m dealing with a 7 and 9-year-old, and you’re forcing me and my deputies to make deadly force decisions with the 7 to 9-year-old. I’m not asking for help, I’m screaming for help.
This isn’t a gun problem. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has repeatedly used high-profile crimes to demand more gun control, but ss the sheriff argues, it’s a people problem, and it starts in the home. Why on earth is the state so quick to return these kids to such a chaotic environment, and what has to happen before the criminal justice system provides some actual consequences for lawless acts?
Allen believes changes need to be made to the juvenile justice system as well, telling the television station that while he doesn’t support “just locking up children,” he does believe “when you’re 16, 17, and 18 years old and you’re out there murdering people”, there needs to be accountability.
Notably (and unlike the governor), the sheriff didn’t call for any new gun laws in his interview with KOAT. While Lujan Grisham hinted at calling lawmakers back to Santa Fe for a special session on crime and public safety after most of her anti-gun agenda failed to be adopted by legislators during the 60-day session earlier this year, she’s recently suggested a session isn’t imminent, even as she continues to push for a semi-auto ban and other measures aimed squarely at lawful gun owners and not the repeat violent offenders Sheriff Allen says are his biggest concern.
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