The New Mexico Foundation of Open Government (NMFOG) is suing Bernalillo County after not releasing a video showing a detention officer attacking an inmate, who later died as a result of the injuries.
NMFOG is a New Mexico nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that serves the open government interests of the public, business community, elected officials, journalists and lawyers.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday against the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners and the county’s records custodian, after the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) failed to hand over the video to local journalists.
Candace Hopkins, spokesperson for MDC, told City Desk ABQ that “the county will review the lawsuit and address it accordingly.”
The lawsuit cites three instances where the county failed to comply with the Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), according to NMFOG.
At a news conference Thursday, Amanda Lavin, NMFOG’s legal director, said the issue was first brought to the organization’s attention by reporters from the Albuquerque Journal in September 2023.
The reporters requested jail security video footage from MDC showing former officer Stephen Gabaldon tackling an inmate, John Sanchez, who later died from head injuries. They also requested complaints filed against the former detention center warden, Jason Jones — who resigned while under investigation in November 2023.
NMFOG separately requested the same records as well as duplicate requests the county received for jail security video footage to “see what kind of responses the county had provided to those other requests,” according to Lavin.
Lavin said the county allowed the reporters and NMFOG to view the video at the MDC but were not allowed a copy of the footage “which we are entitled to under the IPRA.”
The county also denied the requests for the other records, saying they were exempt under IPRA’s law enforcement records exception enacted in 2023.
While the county told NMFOG the records were exempt, it said that the officer who injured the inmate was a corrections officer — not a law enforcement officer — therefore it does not have to provide the video.
Lavin said the “county is relying on the exception to justify withholding, specifically the jail security video” and the MDC is “not a law enforcement agency.”