ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Albuquerque’s mayor took to the airwaves to answer questions about officer-involved shootings after a trying week for the city’s police force, calling on lawmakers to take up legislation that could help reduce police encounters with dangerous mentally ill residents.
Mayor Richard Berry said Friday that unlike cases in some other U.S. cities, he didn’t believe there were any links between race and the more than 40 police shootings in New Mexico’s largest city since 2010.
“But we’ve had a mental health component,” Berry said during an interview with KKOB-AM.
His comment about race referred to the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting of a young black teenager and the Staten Island, New York, choking death of a black suspect. Those deaths sparked protests nationwide, with critics saying they resulted from troubled relationships between police departments and black and Latino residents.
Around half of those shot by Albuquerque police in the past five years were Hispanic or black, according to records.