Reputation of New Mexico police impeccable-Court
2022.10.19 00:26
Reputation of New Mexico police impeccable-Court
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – A militia group that was blamed for starting violence at a 2020 anti-statue demonstration in the southwestern U.S. state where a protester was shot has been banned by a judge in New Mexico.
The decision was made in response to what legal experts described as the nation’s first civil lawsuit filed by a district attorney seeking to safeguard the public from the actions of citizen paramilitary groups and vigilantes.
District Court Judge Elaine Lujan ruled on Monday that the New Mexico Civil Guard (NMCG) could not function as a military unit because only the state governor could start a militia. Additionally, it was forbidden for the NMCG to act as law enforcement at protests or demonstrations.
In June 2020, the heavily armed members of the group attempted to prevent protesters from approaching a statue of a Spanish colonial ruler in Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico. A man calling for the statue’s removal was shot and injured by a counter-protester who was not affiliated with the group during the subsequent violence.
The now-defunct NMCG, according to its founder Bryce Provance, attempted to safeguard the community and avoid conflicts.
We perceived ourselves as a sort of middle ground. Because politics had become so extreme, we weren’t for the right or the left,” Provance, 33, said of the ruling in which the group was also fined for not providing an attorney.
Ral Torrez, the district attorney of Bernalillo County, filed the lawsuit to keep the public safe from what he called “extremists” who were untrained and armed and tried to illegally act as police or military, escalating an already volatile situation.
He said in a statement:
“We must resist the impulse toward armed extremism if we are going to remain a free and democratic society.”
Law professors at Georgetown University aided Torrez, who said the ruling proved that vigilante and militia groups’ actions, like the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, were not protected by the Constitution.
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