EDITORIAL: NM's crime crisis needs real action from governor and law enforcement, not another commission report

May 27—When there's trouble, create a commission. And make a big show of it.

We can only hope the revival of a 1970s commission targeting organized crime goes beyond the inaugural headline. Albuquerque businesses, plagued by brazen break-ins and organized shoplifting rings, need results.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the revival of the Governor's Organized Crime Prevention Commission to much fanfare last week. The commission does have members with impressive credentials — former New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Judith Nakamura, U.S. Marshal Sonya Chavez, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, 8th Judicial District Attorney Marcus Montoya and 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman, who will lead the new commission.

"If you have a problem, my view is all hands on deck," Lujan Grisham said at a news conference Wednesday, seated at the big table in the Governor's Office on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

Missing is state Attorney General Raúl Torrez — who up until a few months ago dealt with the state's crime challenges up close and personal as Bernalillo County district attorney. Torrez says he will support the commission's work, but might it be better if our top prosecutor wasn't on the outside looking in?

The governor says the commission will strengthen law enforcement coordination across jurisdictions and produce recommendations to policymakers. But that's been happening for years — off the top of our heads the list includes the N.M. Gang Task Force, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Criminal Environmental Crimes Task Force, Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Task Force, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, regional Narcotics Task Force(s). To act like our law enforcement agencies don't know how to work together is insulting and disingenuous.

So will this latest one make a difference?

Not without enforcement. The lack thereof is why customers are terrified, and businesses fed up with retail crime are closing shop, all over Albuquerque.

The latest casualty is the Bike Coop in the Bricklight District, which operated for 46 years before closing this weekend. Owner Amanda Batty said crime was a factor in closing Albuquerque's oldest bike shop. It's a loss for the entire community. Over three years the shop donated more than 100 bikes during the Christmas season and offered maintenance classes for women.

Lilly Barrack, a decades-old small business in Albuquerque, closed a store in Nob Hill because of the frequent break-ins. Earlier this month, a car smashed into the Lilly Barrack store on Paseo del Norte, then thieves got out and robbed the place.

American Home Furniture & Mattress is closing its store on Menaul at the end of the year after 60 years, in part because of crime. President and CEO Kenton Van Harten told the Journal both employees and customers became uncomfortable after several car and catalytic converter thefts. Locks had to be installed on bathroom doors because of people doing drugs in the store.

Although corporate wouldn't admit it, many believe Walmart closed its store on San Mateo SE in the International District in March because of rampant shoplifting. The store's closure sparked an outcry from community members, who said it left the area with barriers to cost-friendly and healthy groceries.

Other big-box stores have closed or relocated, including TJ Maxx on Montgomery and Louisiana, which had become a shoplifting haven. Rosie Roerick of nearby The Yeller Sub told KOB 4 the department store was hit almost daily by crime. "We would see people run past our windows (with carts) full of purses, full of suitcases, clothes, and there's nothing they can do about it."

The governor says the organized crime commission will target human trafficking and illegal fentanyl sales — that's great if a commission can actually move the needle on either. But our communities' rampant retail and property crime very often goes hand-in-hand with drug and human trafficking, and too many New Mexicans are tired of having a front-row seat to thieves walking out with armloads of stolen merchandise to feed a drug habit or assuage a trafficker.

And on that front we have had — more panels.

The governor announced the creation of the Business Advisory Council for Crime Reduction in January due to widespread concerns from the business community about crime.

Mayor Tim Keller, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and former Attorney General Hector Balderas made a big splash last August when they announced New Mexico was joining a 20-state network to gather and share data on organized retail crime.

In July 2021, Balderas — who estimated organized retail crime costs New Mexico $1 billion a year — announced the creation of a statewide Organized Retail Crime Task Force to target professional shoplifting operations. The task force arrested more than 100 serial shoplifters the following fall, but we haven't heard much about it lately.

Republican lawmakers are understandably skeptical about the new Governor's Organized Crime Prevention Commission. House Minority Leader Ryan Lane, R-Aztec, worries it will be "yet another commission allowing politicians to take political victory laps but not provide real solutions."

Unfortunately history is on his side.

If the latest crime-fighting commission can actually get retailers to act and law enforcement to respond to brazen break-ins by crooks crashing vehicles through store walls and doors, the open sale of stolen merchandise outside a store, shoplifting rings utilizing city buses as getaway vehicles, and thieves scouting catalytic converters, all the better.

But if it doesn't, we've got another blue-ribbon panel that grabs headlines but not crooks.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.