STATE OF NEW MEXICO
COUNTY OF BERNALILLO
SECOND JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT
DANNY HAWKES, MARY ALICE HAWKES
and ANGELA HAWKES, as the Personal
Representatives of the ESTATE OF MARY
S. HAWKES, deceased.
Plaintiffs,

v.

No. D-202-CV-2016-01373

CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE,
Defendant.

Affidavit of Reynaldo Chavez
I, Reynaldo Chavez, the affiant, being over the age of eighteen, having been duly swom, state
under oath and penalty of perjury that:
I. I was hired for the position of Central Records Supervisor and Records Custodian for the
Albuquerque Police Department ("APD") in June of2011.
2. I was assigned a permanent position as a classified employee of the City of Albuquerque
on December 3, 2011.
3. I was the designated "custodian of public records" for APD pursuant to NMSA 1978, §
14-2-7 (2011) and as further defined byNMSA 1978, § 14-2-6 (2013), both subsections
of New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act ("IPRA").
4.

In compliance with the statutory requirements ofNMSA 1978, § 14-2-7 (2011)
(hereinafter IPRA), in addition to other assigned duties, I was tasked, by the City of
Albuquerque to: A. receive requests, including through electronic mail or facsimile, to
inspect public records; B. respond to requests in the same medium, electronic or paper, in
which the request was made in addition to any other medium that the custodian deemed
appropriate; C. provide proper and reasonable opportunities to inspect public records; D.
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Exhibit 5

 provide reasonable facilities to make or furnish copies of the public records during usual
business hours.
5. As a consequence of being APD's Records Custodian, when parties brought forward
legal actions against the City of Albuquerque for alleged violations of IPRA, I was
named as a party to lawsuits.
6. On November 18,2013, City Chief Administrative Officer Robert J. Perry ("CAO
Perry") approved my promotion to the position of "IPRA Supervisor."
7. My job description, duties, and responsibilities included, but were not limited to
restructming the process of how APD received and responded to Inspection of Public
Records Act ("IPRA") requests, receiving IPRA requests, coordinating the gathering of
records, including lapel camera and cell phone videos held by the City of Albuquerque
and APD, satisfying IPRA requests, and responding to subpoenas served upon APD as
well.
8. In determining what records and videos were responsive to IPRA requests concerning
"high profile" officer involved shooting cases, I had limited discretion and was required
to seek approval for records and videos released from the City of Albuquerque Police
Department.
9. As APD's Records Custodian, my name was publicly presented by the City of
Albuquerque as the point of contact for all persons seeking to submit IPRA requests to
APD concerning officer involved shooting cases.
10. Additional duties the City assigned to me included developing, creating, and maintaining
an electronic database to track all IPRA requests from the initial request to final
dissemination of public records that was heralded as a benchmark program.

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 11. The City provided to me one Apple iPhone, two Apple iPads, a premium high
performance Hewlett Packard desktop computer, a four-terabyte external hard drive, a
ten-stage CD burner to copy lapel video or other video, a government vehicle, a private
parking space, a City corporate VISA 01' MASTERCARD, and large volume scanning
equipment (purchased with JAG grant funds) in support of my positon along with a large
private office.
12. As Records Custodian, I supervised two City employees. In SUppOlt of the new unit, APD
contracted with Select Staffing, Inc. to provide up to three temporary workers to assist in
receiving, processing, and responding to IPRA requests.
13. With the volume of IPRA requests received by APD numbering up to two dozen requests
a week, I divided the workload into four categories: high profile requests, media requests,
citizen requests, and law firm requests. Of those, I processed the highest profile requests
with the other two employees handling the other requests. Support activities were
assigned to employees of Select Staffing, Inc.
14. City of Albuquerque employees told me what requests were considered "high profile"
and thereafter specifically assigned me direct responsibility to respond to those specific
requests they identified as "high profile."
15. Every officer involved shooting including of James Mathew Boyd, Mary Hawkes, and
Jeremy Robertson, constituted a high profile IPRA request.
16. As Records Custodian, I was tasked with specific responsibility to address IPRA requests
relating to APD use of force (2011 t1u'ough 2015), including every APD officer involved
shooting, and specifically, James Matthew Boyd, Mary Hawkes, and Jeremy Robertson.

3

 I

17. In support of fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of my position, I requested records
from APD units and departments including: documents, lapel camera video, belt tape
audio, field investigative reports, photographs, homicide/detective
interviews/investigative reports, tactical operation plans, citizen police complaints, cell
phone video, cell phone audio, full supplemental reports, witness statements, safe-house
interviews, text messages, and email correspondences responsive to a given IPRA
request.
18. Upon collection of responsive records, I would seek approval or confilmation from my
supervisors conceming the records to be released.
19. In response to IPRA requests related to the deaths of James Matthew Boyd, Jeremy
Robertson, and Mary Hawkes, Deputy City Attomey Kathy Levy, and/or a Deputy Chief,
told me to deny, withhold, obstmct, conceal, or even destroy records from matters being
produced in contravention ofIPRA by: A. telling me that records would not be released
without any explanation other than "this won't be released" or words to that effect.
Deputy City Attomey Kathy Levy frequently stated simply, "there are items we just will
not release and we will just pay the fines or lawsuits." B. Deputy City Attomey Levy told
me to creatively identify an allowable exception to IPRA to withhold production of
responsive public records in an effort to "baffle" or frustrate the requestor or otherwise
bmden them. C. I was told to arbitrarily delay production of responsive public records
without justification supporting such delay and to fabricate reasons to bmden requestors
with additional requirements when such requirements were not needed such as case
numbers or increased particularity in a given request such as requiring the IPRA
requestor to provide the email addresses of public employees.

4

I

 20. I know that "political calculations" motivated City employees to commit such unlawful
or improper actions. Such political reasons included but were not limited to: concealing
misconduct by City personnel, mitigating negative media and public reaction concerning
actions by City personnel, retaliating against City personnel, depriving opposing pmties
of discovery related to pending civil actions against the City and shooting APD officers,
encrypting or altering audio and video so that requestors were not able to access
information contained therein, and concealing relevant records from the United States
Depmtment of Justice.
21. Specifically, I know that from 2013 to the spring of2014, the primary person in the
Criminal Forensic Unit of the City of Albuquerque Police Depmtment, Frank Pezzano,
knew how to encrypt and/or erase Taser lapel camera video with a possible result being
lapel camera video would either appear blank, encrypted, altered, or corrupted when
produced to media and/or attorneys or to any person searching for information
concerning the Mary Hawkes shooting.
22. When I learned that Frank Pezzano was erasing, altering, corrupting and/or encrypting
lapel camera video, I told his chain of command that it was unlawful.
23. I learned that Lieutenant Aragon was allowing Frank Pezzano to erase, corrupt, alter or
encrypt camera video and I told him that it was illegal and unlawful to do so.
24. In response to my telling Lieutenant Aragon that erasing, corrupting, altering, and/or
encrypting camera video was unlawful, I was told later that day by Deputy City Attorney
Kathy Levy that she was handling the situation.
25. I know that the Scorpion Camera SD cards were easy to make disappear. I know that
because I was present in Deputy Chief Garcia's office when Assistant Chief Huntsman

5

 said "we can malce this disappear," in response to an IPRA request for Jason Peck's
camera with an SD card in it.
26. Prior to April of 2014, I also knew that SD cards were easy to erase. I had heard many
people working in and aronnd the APD Evidence Unit that SD Cards were easily
"bleached" or "deleted" or "altered," by APD personnel in the Forensics Unit.
27. From 2013-2015, I had so many IPRA requests for SD card or lapel video that there were
approximately five to six new people, at the APD Forensic Unit, tasked with burning
copies of video. That is how I learned about SD cards and lapel camera video being
either deleted, encrypted, altered, or destroyed.
28. When the City of Albuquerque Police Department had access to Evidence.Com and after
the City purchased software for Frank Pezzano to use, I learned that City of Albuquerque
administrators, including myself, could edit lapel camera video in any number of ways.
29. I was one of a handful of City of Albuquerque administrators instructed on how to edit in
Evidence.com. I was able to see, via the Evidence.com audit trail, that people had in fact
deleted and/or altered lapel camera video. Videos, other than Taser videos, could be
uploaded to Evidence.com. We were able to build cases on Evidence.com. We were able
to alter videos by inselting or blurring images on the videos or by removing images from
the video.
30. I learned that Detective Christopher B. Whigham was training other units, specifically,
PIOs (public information officers) and Command Staff (located on the

Stl1

floor); and

those in the Forensics Unit and the Major Gangs Unit on how to edit video, meaning you
could delete video and add images and blur video and/or corrupt the videos so that they
were either not usable or altered.

6

 31. With the advent of Evidence.com it became easier to alter video: cell phone video, lapel
video or surveillance video as Evidence.com was a very robust and powerful program.
32. When I learned that Albuquerque Police Department employees could alter video using
Evidence.com, I voiced my concern first to Detective Whigham who then went to my
chain-of-command and in response, Deputy City Attorney Kathy Levy told me to allow
Detective Whigham access to Evidence.com.
33. What I would see happen was when an officer wrote a police repmi and it went through
Report Review and then UCR (Unified Crime Repmiing) and when it was finalized it
becan1e more difficult to claim that there was not video. When a police repmi noted or
mentioned any type of evidence had been submitted to the Evidence Unit, the APD
Forensic Unit knew that it would have to account for the video. In those cases, the video
would be altered or corrupted if it was damaging to the police department.
34. As a result, I learned that officers working the graveyard shift or those involved in officer
involved shootings or the specialized units, like Major Gangs, were instructed not to
write their repmis until their videos had been reviewed. If their videos did not contain
images harmful to the Depmiment, then the officers could indicate that they had recorded
a given incident in their report. If the videos contained images that were "problematic"
for the Department, the officer was instructed not to mention that there was a recording in
the report andlor state that the recording equipment had malfunctioned or that the officer
had failed to engage the recorder.
35. The City's motivation was two-fold. The City wanted to appeal" to be following Chief
Eden's edict to record all encounters with civilians on the one hand, while, at the same
time, preventing any damaging recordings from reaching the public.

7

 36. I am familiar with the operations of Evidence.com; having been trained by the City of
Albuquerque police department to use Evidence.com.
37. I have reviewed the lapel camera video of Officer Brokaw and the lapel camera video
Isaac Romero provided to APD Forensic after the shooting of Mary

s. Hawkes.

Based

on my knowledge of Evidence. com, I can see that Officer Brokaw's lapel camera video
has been altered by changing the gradient of the resolution on the video. I can see as
much as the first twenty seconds of Officer Isaac Romero's video has been deleted. I
have reviewed Tanner Tixier's lapel camera video. I can tell looking at Tanner Tixier's
video that it has been altered by using the functionalities within Evidence.com where you
can make the slides of the video blurry or unclear. I know that these alterations to Taser
lapel camera video are possible using Evidence.com and that an audit trail on these
videos is also available on Evidence.com. I also know that the Department can delete
and alter video and has done so in the past.
38. I recall in the Jeremy Robelison case, I spent almost a day looking at video in response to
IPRA requests. I watched video of the Robertson shooting. During this time, I knew that
the City of Albuquerque police department was able to alter the videos in a number of
ways, as described above.
39. I reviewed a surveillance video taken from a salon in the Jeremy Robelison case. Based
on my knowledge of Evidence.com, I can see the salon video has the tell-tale signs that it
has been altered and images that had been captured are now deleted. One of the deleted
images captured the officers shooting Jeremy Robertson. The Department is capable of
deleting images in Evidence.com and has done so in the past.

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 I declare, under penalty of perjury, that these facts are true and correct to the best of my
knowledge and belief.

Affiant:

Reynaldo hay

SUBSCRIBED AND SWORN to before me this
by

day of

CiAAPf)'
Notary Public

My Commission Expires:
4'''"'''

OFFICIAL SEAL
ERIN S. PEARSON
_
Notary Public
/
State of New Mexico (')
"'"0;'"'' My Comm. Expires ?-::l'J-i 0

9

,2016,