Legislation that would add exceptions to when a New Mexico law enforcement officer must have their body cameras turned on has cleared a Senate committee with bipartisan support.
Senate Bill 368 was moved out of the New Mexico Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee Monday on a 5-0 vote.
In 2020, New Mexico passed a law requiring any on-duty peace officer wear a body camera and have it activated “when responding to a call for service or at the initiation of any law enforcement or investigative encounter between a peace officer and a member of the public.”
When he presented the bill Monday to the committee, state Sen. Harold Pope (D-Albuquerque), the bill's main sponsor, said the measure would permit an officer to have their body camera turned off when notifying a member of the public of a death, conducting an undercover operation sanctioned by a law enforcement agency and when recovering or disposing of explosive or incendiary devices.
Damon Martinez, a former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, appeared as an expert witness in support of the bill. He said an officer wearing a body camera while handling explosive materials, runs the risk of setting those materials off. He added that creates a dilemma for the officer.
“If you leave your body camera running you could possibly detonate an explosive, if you turn it off you are violating the law,” Martinez said to the committee.
Aaron Jones, a commander with the Albuquerque Police Department, where he oversees the department's special investigations unit, said the absence of an exception for detectives doing undercover work has had some consequences.
Jones said although his department has continued their undercover operations, they have been reduced since the body camera requirement became law, out of the fear they could endanger a detective's life.
“Those devices, if located, could put that detective's life in peril when they are in these situations where they are either purchasing firearms or narcotics or conducting vice operations to try to recover human trafficking victims,” Jones explained to the Committee.
The bill next goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Breaking news reporter Alex Ross can be contacted at 575-622-7710, ext. 301, or breakingnews@rdrnews.com.
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