John Smith took this photograph of a National Guard helicopter parked near a Madrid home during a 2006 eradication mission.
Credits: Photo courtesy of John Smith
DPS denied that request on the grounds that it does not keep incident logs of Region III eradication activities.
But a 2010 joint powers agreement between DPS and Region III requires DPS to keep “Offense/Incident Reports,” as well as overtime records for its officers who participate in eradication missions. When SFR pointed this requirement out in a subsequent request, DPS provided incident reports for three specific dates in 2009 and 2010.
Only one of those reports pertains to Sept. 20, 2010—the day described in minute detail by so many Madrid residents.
According to the one report DPS provides, an officer conducting aerial observation saw, between 1 and 6 pm, “a substantial amount of what appeared to be marijuana plants” growing outside the home of Laurene Nellessen, a Madrid resident. After conducting another hour of aerial surveillance, the report says, Nellessen signed a consent form allowing Region III officers to search her property. According to the report, they found 35 plants and “a small amount of dried product.”
According to online court records, Nellessen has not been charged with any crime. (Her only listed telephone number has been disconnected.)
SFR also filed public records requests with Region III and with the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, which stated that it had already furnished all its Sept. 20 reports to the Region.
But search warrants filed in the month of September in the 1st Judicial District show that Region III officers visited at least one other residence—that of Kathryn Moore, Brian Lee’s neighbor.
According to the warrant, New Mexico State Police Officer Gabriel Trujillo “was advised by Region III narcotics agents via cell phone that a possible marijuana plantation is present near Gold Mine Road.” Agent Vincent Montez, according to the warrant, saw the plants “from the air, inside the National Guard helicopter.”
(According to New Mexico Army National Guard FOIA/Privacy Officer Sgt. Major Brenda Mallary, the Guard provides air support for Region III drug enforcement activities but is “never the lead agency in [drug] seizures.”)
Sometime after 12:21 pm, Region III agents arrived at the property and reported “a distinct smell of marijuana” and suspected marijuana plants “under see through fabric.”
After SFR again requested additional information, Region III Program Manager Ralph Lopez provided another report, in which 56 plants were seized from a vacant lot in Cerrillos, but said the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office would not provide the report pertaining to Moore’s case because “disposition is pending.”
(SFR also attempted to reach Moore but was unable to speak with her.)
Overtime reports show that at least four officers were in Madrid that day—and received between four and eight hours of overtime pay for eradication activities. In total, the reports SFR received from DPS and Region III account for approximately two hours and don’t account for any of the Madrid residents’ experiences documented by SFR.
Sarah Welsh, the executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, says the dearth of concrete information about the events of Sept. 20 is worrisome.
“Public oversight of police activity is really at the core of open government and the First Amendment, because you have people authorized by the government to go out and make a show of force,” Welsh says. “It’s intimidating; it’s frightening for people, so oversight of that activity—what they’re doing and why, making sure they do it constitutionally and fairly—is a really important function of government.”
But Lopez tells SFR that, while Region III supervises all eradication missions, it doesn’t keep a daily log of its activities.
“It’s not a requirement,” Lopez says. “And just because you speak to somebody doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to do a report—I mean, unless there’s really something at the other end of the report such as a seizure or an arrest or something that’s going to require an investigation.”
Whether a daily accounting of its actions is required or not, Welsh says, keeping records is still essential for oversight of publicly funded agencies such as Region III.
“That’s kind of disturbing on another level,” Welsh says. “If they’re avoiding making records because they want to avoid oversight, that’s a serious problem.”
The information vacuum isn’t limited to Region III. According to research on multi-jurisdictional task forces and the grant programs that fund them, “[D]ata gathering at the local level is limited and data analysis is scant,” researchers at the DOJ’s National Institute of Justice Journal reported in 2003.
At that time, the report found, fewer than a dozen studies had attempted to evaluate such programs.
This problem persists, according to a report released last fall by the US Government Accountability Office, which found continuing shortfalls in the amount, level and reliability of reporting on Byrne-JAG expenditures.
In New Mexico, the Region III Task Force has made occasional headlines—in 2002, for an 18-month undercover operation that resulted in 52 arrests in the Española area and, more recently, for an unsuccessful eradication operation that yielded only tomatoes grown by schoolchildren.
Region III provided its own budget data at SFR’s request—but Lopez says each individual agency pays its officers’ salaries even if they work full-time with Region III. (Region III does, however, pay them overtime.)
This much is evident: DPS officers earned $780 in overtime pay on Sept. 20—close to half the total overtime budgeted for DPS by Region III. And O’Niell says OH-58 Kiowas—the type of helicopter captured in Madrid residents’ photos—cost approximately $1,500 per flight hour to operate.
Add in the guns, body armor and vehicles, and it’s a lot more taxpayer money than many area residents are willing to allocate for the 91 marijuana plants the DPS says it seized that day.
“I’ve been a taxpayer here for 40-something years,” Lawrence, a Madrid resident who asked that his last name not be used for fear of retribution, says. “And my money is going to support this? That drives me nuts!”
Sheila Lewis, the Drug Policy Alliance’s interim state director for New Mexico, says any marijuana eradication is inappropriate, given New Mexico’s more serious problems.
“The use of Region III Task Force money, which involves local law enforcement, to persecute people for marijuana growing, is misguided and costly,” Lewis says.
Twenty-two jurisdictions in 11 states have declared marijuana their lowest law enforcement priority, Lewis notes.
“Marijuana is so widely accepted now that making this any kind of a priority is just out of touch with the reality of what people want,” she says. “It’s a mistake to paint all drugs with the same brush. There are a lot of people using marijuana whose lives are not affected by it, who use it more healthily than they use alcohol and who are not involved in property crime to support their quote-unquote ‘marijuana habit.’”
These photos, taken by Sylvia Stanley on Sept. 20, 2010, show armed Region III officers patrolling the Madrid area.
Credits: Photos courtesy of Sylvia Stanley
“I could spend a year trying to locate that [number],” he says.
And Velázquez says one of the major benchmarks for a task force’s success, the number of arrests made, isn’t necessarily a true indicator of success.
“People arrested doesn’t really correlate with, did you have a serious crime problem and did this address it?” Velázquez says. In that sense, she says, “The actual reporting can encourage the sorts of low-level arrests that we know have a negative impact on public safety as well as on people in communities.”
That’s something Madrid can rally around.
“This is not meth; this is not heroin; are machine guns really necessary for this?” Lee wonders. “Who needs regulating on—the hippies in the hills with pot or the millionaire, billionaire drug guys?”
Or, perhaps, the regulators themselves? SFR
I also was harassed by the men in black. They approached me saying that the helicopter had spotted "marijuana plants growing taller than my house roof". An absurd statement. I invited them up to see. There was nothing. They said "it must have been new sage growth". I think that the probable cause helicopter sightings were scripted before the choppers even arrived in Madrid! That's just wrong!!!
These helipcopters flew ALL DAY at unsafe low levels throughout the area, scaring residents and scaring off tourists, the primary source of revenue for the area (it is the Scenic Turquoise Trail, after all). I had a pilot look at one of the photos I took and he estimated that these helicopters were only about 150 feet or less above the ground - often near power lines and in canyons. None of the helicopters were marked with identifying information - which is required by the FAA - I was later told from the FAA that they had no jurisdiction over the public safety issue if it was a government maneuver! This seems to amount to a blanket search and seizure approach for all residents in the area - not to mention detroying our quiet enjoyment and privacy of our private propeerty - just to yield a few pot plants and no arrests or convictions. This blanket search and seizure does not seem legal and I wish there was a way to challenge it. Thank you for publishing this article.
It asks "How many pot plants does it take to justify a war on drugs"? From my perspective ONE.It is illegal by the law...does it need to be a war? well,no but if you let one go then it is two,three etc. They just need to legalize it and be done with this. Probably put the drug cartels out of business to.
Actually, Carol, there are many NM residents who can, quite legally, grow cannabis plants- medical cannabis patients with proiper State clearance.
What the task force observers aqre looking for is a color, a shape, an area cleared for cultivation- try spotting that from 400 feet above the ground in a moving aircraft. At the Montessori school, tomato plants were mistaken for cannabis. Other than the embarrasment of the poor sap who made the mistake, the kids on the ground were arguably endangered by the flyover- helicopters have extreme difficulty surviving engine failure at the low airspeed/ altitude in these operations- if an engine failure occurred, the ship would "land" in an area approximately below it's location, usually catastrophically, potentially very messy with thrown parts, rotor blades, etc.
Yes, illegal cultivation is -illegal, but under New Mexico LAW, potentially 3200 people can grow cannabis legally. The use of dangerous aircraft flyovers to check out plats with similar color or shape, from 400 feet above ground, and maybe catch someone illegally growing, while bothering those on the ground, begs a risk/ "reward" question-
is it worth endangering the lives of those on the ground who are going about their lives to maybe arrest someone illegally growing what can be LEGALLY GROWN UNDER NEW MEXICO LAW?????
And kicking in doors, bullying consent to search, tresspassing because they saw a familiar color, the way you really want to live? I'd rather see my TAX MONEY go to education or treatment rather than dangerous, noisy flyovers that have mixed results, trample Fourth Amendment RIGHTS of citizens, and endanger the cops, residents and harrass law abiding citizens.
In case you're wondering, I spent over 20 years in the War on Drugs, 25 years flying drug eradication and interdiction missions, have spotted cannabis growing- one plant in a Louisiana swamp, more in other places, and lost three- friends in drug- war aircraft crashed the year I retired.
It isn't worth it- we've militarized law enforcement and spent (wasted) billions of dollars- cannabis is legal for qualified medical users in 15 states. The War on Drugs has failed. It has, however, disenfranchised millions of voters for something that someone with a bit more money can fight, thereby preserving their college loan eligibilty, job prospects, future professional licensing, .......... while those who cannot fight the drug charge get jailed, have their future employability wrecked, all for the same thing- simple posession.
IF you want to live in a country whose growth industry is private prisons, who jails 10% of Black males, and insists on maintaining this immoral, dual system where the wealthy wink and get their wrists slapped for powder cocaine possession while the less fortunate use crack and get 10x the sentence, and do the time, and make sure minorities can't vote since they did time, the War on Drugs is ready- made for you. If you like drug testing because it makes you feel good, think about all the folks who are still half- drunk at work, or impaired, hungover. Be honest with yourselves, and decide which one is more dangerous in the workplace. I've been run into many times by drunk drivers; cigarettes killed one of my parents, who as a retired state employee, taxpayers covered the medical bills.
No one has ever overdosed on cannabis and the social costs are nil except for those caught up in the legal system. The biggest risk to the rest of us is the lack of tax revenue from street sales.
If cannabis were regulated for adults over 21, and taxed, the benefit to the State would be enormous. The "best" argument the Governor and prohibition advocates have is that cannabis is a "gateway drug", a tenuous claim that lacks scientific merit- it is anecdotal and not backed up by scientific proof. Cannabis remains DEA- scheduled out of a last- gasp effort to keep the money to law enforcement and related cottage industires - drug testing, prisons, etc. and keep Big Pharma happy.
The "Welcome To Madrid" article provided a very extensive accounting of the money and manpower spent to police Santa Fe County in the effort to eradicate marijuana. This is not news. This is the never ending War On Drugs, a very old story, and you didn't tell anybody anything new. The one question that should be asked is, "WHY is marijuana illegal?" This is why...
Congress voted for the illegality of marijuana in 1937 because it would have injured the profits of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper baron. Invented in 1935, the Decorticator, was the scientific breakthrough that would cheaply process hemp into paper. The devise was unveiled on the front cover of the June 1935 issue of Modern Invention as the "miracle machine" and hemp was forecast as "America's first billion dollar crop." In over 70 years since the criminalization of marijuana most people are entirely unaware that hemp was once an integral commodity that helped build this nation. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are penned upon hemp paper. The sails of ships, the ropes that hoisted them into place, and the canvas of the covered wagons were made of hemp. The first Levis were woven from this fiber, which was the major crop grown by Washington, Jefferson, and every other farmer who planted this basic staple of existence. However, William Randolph Hearst produced newspapers and was heavily invested in the sulfuric-pulp process that makes trees into paper. He owned forests, too. He supplied his own businesses with paper and sold paper to other companies across the country. This invention had him very worried so he personally began writing propaganda essays in his papers decrying marijuana as a public health menace that turns normal people into ax-wielding mass murderers. Andrew Mellon, much wealthier than Hearst and also an investor in the sulfuric-pulp paper industry, was the Secretary of the Treasury at the time. Mellon was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, which was the main source of finance for DuPont Chemical, which held the patent on the sulfuric acid wood-pulping process. And DuPont had just invented nylon and rayon and they never wanted to see another rope made from hemp ever again. Mellon was instrumental in creating a new government agency called the Bureau of Narcotics and he placed Harry Anslinger, married to Mellon's niece, as its first director. Anslinger testified before Congress, reading actual Hearst-written articles, about how this dangerous weed drives people insane and turns them into violent animals. Doctors and scientist's testimony contradicted Anslinger's when they provided proven studies that marijuana actually causes users to become quite serene and contemplative. Anslinger then reversed his angle of attack completely and said, "Marijuana causes its users to become so peaceful and pacifistic that in the future American boys will not want to fight in our wars." Congress voted and marijuana has been illegal ever since. The former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, once said... "If you're smoking pot the only thing you're likely to attack is a bag of potato chips." In over 80% of violent crimes, alcohol abuse is a primary ingredient. And here's a bit more info regarding this pulp-sulfide paper making process.... the amount of fiber harvested from one acre of hemp, which takes only one season to grow, is equal to the amount harvested from five acres of trees that take 50 or more years to grow. The sulfide-pulp process is one of the leading contributors to our green-house atmosphere and acid rain problems, while the Decorticator hemp-process adds nothing at all. It is long past time that we legalize hemp, we legalize marijuana, and get over this ridiculous policy that has created half the population of our jails. More than half of the people jailed in America are there because of non-violent drug use and/or sales.
As a local to the Madrid/Cerrillos area, one of the things that has surprised me the most regarding these yearly missions is what appears to be a complete lack of continuity in "intellegence" from year to year. I live in a tiny cabin where nothing ever changes, yet every year the helicopters buzz back and forth totalling probably a half hour each year spent hovering or passing over my residence, often flying so low that I could hit them with a rock. Neighboring proximity to anything that has ever happened near me should not deem me as a yearly suspect, but that seems to be the case.
In regards to law enforcement statements that they do not enter property illegally or without probable cause, during 2006's mission I woke to a helicopter circling my cabin, literally shaking the whole structure. It would fly away for a few minutes and come back and at one point I stepped out onto the porch, made eye contact with a passenger and waved. I watched the copter land on a piece of property some distance from mine, and 15 minutes later had three armed and tactical gear wearing individuals come marching down my driveway. I stepped out, told them good morning, and got absolutely no response or acknowledgement from them. They marched right past me, briefly examined a dilapilated shed filled with junk left by previous occupants that sits behind my cabin, and off they marched. I assume they considered my shed probable cause to approach like they did even though it's door was already wide open and hanging from one hinge, and should have been obvious as junk from their hovering altitude as the individuals in the helicopter were to me from the ground. Two years ago I removed the roof of the shed to make the junk plain as day, but that seems to only have succeeded in assuring good money has been spent each year since hovering over a completely obvious pile of junk.