Elaine Maestas had enough.
“We miss our New Mexican roots, miss home,” she said from a Zoom call. “It was not an easy, decision that I made. I’m going to try not to get emotional.”
Maestas moved to Missouri, giving up on New Mexico after her sister was shot and killed by Bernalillo County Deputies in 2019, and her subsequent police accountability advocacy roles had run its course.
“[I] felt hopeless. Like, what’s going to change?” Maestas said.
Her latest disappointment is detailed in a whistleblower lawsuit against the City of Albuquerque. She claims the city’s newest branch of first responders, Albuquerque Community Safety, misrepresented its working relationship with police, and retaliated against her when she spoke out when she worked as an ACS responder.
“It seemed like an answered prayer,” Maestas said of joining ACS. She was a Community-Oriented Response Assistance (CORA) responder, a specialized team designed to, “respond with a trauma-informed approach to educate on cycles of grief and healing while connecting people to service providers and resources,” however her lawsuit claims ACS works, “hand-in-glove with Albuquerque Police Department.”
“There was, again, many calls where it was unnecessary for them [APD] to be there, and it really undermined the purpose of what the department was created to do,” Maestas said.
The lawsuit claims while out responding, Maestas overheard a conversation between a police officer and another ACS employee about, “roughing up,” a...
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