Fired Espanola officers lash out against police chief

two former espanola police officers are lashing out at the police chief tonight. they tell eyewitness news 4 they were terminated after speaking out about another officer — who pulled a gun on one of them. gadi schwartz just got back from espanola- he is live in santa fe with what he learned. this all started late last year -- when a rookie officer says a corporal pulled out a gun and pointed it at his chest as a joke. for 6 months the officer and a witness say they did nothing because they feared retaliation. then they heard about the new mayor’s open door police and brought it to her attention.. now both are out of a job. "i am writing this letter to inform you of an incident... memo after memo- documenting one big concern about another veteran officer. "the officer said expletive i'll pull out my glock and then then pulled his duty weapon from his holster and pointed it at me." rookie bryan peters says he witnessed an espanola corporal pull out his gun and point it at ron sanchez's chest- as part of a joke- "that's something thats not a joking matter because the first rule of fire arm safety rule is you never point your weapon at something your not willing to destroy." peters says he went through the chain of command -- and eventually the chief conducted the internal affairs investigation- without interviewing sanchez or himself. peters says he then fired sanchez because of a poor attitude... that was around the time espanola's new mayor came into office- and after hearing about a new open door policy- five officers took advantage and met with mayor alice lucero about their concerns about the chief. but then the chief barged in- you can hear the chief on a tape recording from one officer ... "come on! babosos- mayor... what is this? this is crazy??? behind my back?" after meeting with her and bringing this to her attention she assured us that we wouldn't have any retaliation taken against myself or anyone else that had spoken up- and then what happened? ...

Channel: ClipSyndicate Video Length: 0s Date Found: Thu, Jul 15 2010 10:43 PM Category: News Date Produced: Thu, Jul 15 2010 8:06 PM View Count: 0