Why Are Albuquerque Cops Playing Basketball With Kids While Wearing Guns?

A video was recently posted to Facebook praising Albuquerque, New Mexico police officers for taking some time to play basketball with some local kids. The video was uploaded by Jennifer Michele who states, “APD came and played basketball with the neighborhood kids. Very proud to have seen this.”

Was she also proud that these officers were putting the lives of these children in danger by running and bouncing around with service revolvers and other dangerous items still attached to their utility belts? If you pay attention to the video you can clearly see the handguns strapped to the officers while they are carelessly flouncing around and creating a severe safety issue. Equipment fails. A holster, no matter how secure, is subject to Murphy’s Law as much as anything else. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to remove the their weapons before traipsing around freely with so many kids present? Couldn’t one of the officers have guarded these potentially lethal items while the others wasted taxpayers money playing games?

One might wonder why in a city that ranks among America’s most dangerous, cops are playing Basketball and not out preventing or solving real crimes, of which there is no shortage. FBI data indicates a steady increase in violent crimes in Albuquerque. Meanwhile the clearance rate for homicide is on average 65% per year. That means that about 1 in every 3 killings go unresolved, with killers walking the street while the police put kids in danger while doing public relations stunts.

Albuquerque PD is no stranger to shenanigans nor to CopBlock.org. We recently reported about a cop who shot another undercover cop nine times in a War on Drugs fueled bullet bender. In the past they shot a man for holding brake pads, attacked and choked a man who was filming an arrest, and even suspiciously ignored a murder of a political opponent, among many more questionable activities.  So it is little wonder that recently an MMA fighter was inspired to call an APD officer a, “Fucking liar, pig.”

I guess being an officer for the APD means low expectations, plenty of slack and a better than average chance to get to get to play PEW PEW PEW!!! Damn it feels good to be a gangster.