Former police academy instructor thinks missing guns are in hands of Mexican cartels

10/10/2014

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety is directly responding to more allegations of missing weapons at its police officer training facility. It's another in a long list of serious allegations against New Mexico's Law Enforcement Academy.

According to fired former instructors, they were ordered to stop looking into the case of the missing guns.   

Three former instructors, and one man still technically employed by the academy, claim that even former Department of Public Safety secretary and current APD Chief Gorden Eden knew guns were missing from the academy, and according to them, so did Gov. Susana Martinez's office.

"AR-15 rifles, handguns that were fully loaded, some of them were fully-automatic weapons," said former LEA instructor Phil Gallegos. 

Gallegos says he couldn't make sense of all the guns he found after his bosses told him to take inventory of academy weapons back in 2012.

All those guns, he says, were just sitting in the office of an employee who'd recently left the academy.

"There was something in the neighborhood of 7,500 rounds of various calibers in that office," said Gallegos.

Then, he says, he and fellow instructor Curt Voiles found even more weapons in the closet of the Advanced Training Bureau Chief Mark Shea.

"They were not secured in any way, shape, or form," he said.

The trouble was, Gallegos said many of those guns weren't recorded in academy inventory logs.

But he also says there were handguns, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles on inventory lists that couldn't be found. 

"Mr. Eden came down," said Gallegos, "and he made a statement. His statement was, 'Well, it doesn't surprise me you found weapons that weren't on that inventory list.'"

Gallegos and other former instructors say they told then-Department of Public Safety secretary and current Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden about the missing guns.

"He says, 'Well, when I was an instructor back here, gun manufacturers used to routinely come by and give us guns, and we never put them on any inventory list. [As a] matter of fact, many instructors took them home,'" said Gallegos.

Then, Gallegos says, the three were told to stop looking into weapons inventory at the academy.

"Someone at the governor's office – staff, or higher - knew about the missing weapons because I got a phone call directly to my office," said former LEA instructor George Puga.

Puga says not long after the weapons inventory, in December 2012, he got a call.

"[The caller] stated he was the chief of staff for Governor Martinez, and they wanted  to know about missing weapons at the academy," said Puga.

Puga told the caller he had been instructed by Secretary Eden not to talk about the weapons inventory, and ended the conversation.

An hour later, he says a state police internal affairs investigator was in his office, asking him if he had said anything about missing weapons to the governor's office. Then he said, the investigator asked him this:

"Where do you think the weapons went?" Puga recalls the question. "I asked him, 'Do you want my opinion?' He said, 'Yeah.'"

Puga says he answered:

"My opinion - they're down in Mexico with a drug cartel. He stood up, pointed two fingers at me and said, 'Don't you ever, ever say that. They're not down there.'"

Current APD Chief Gorden Eden is a defendant in the former instructor's whistleblower-retaliation lawsuit, and APD spokeswoman Janet Blair says Eden cannot comment on pending legal cases.

To those serious allegations of missing guns, current DPS secretary Greg Fouratt issued this written statement Wednesday:

"In an effort to shore up their attempted $6 million shakedown of New Mexico taxpayers, the disgruntled former instructors have dredged up claims about allegedly missing firearms," said Fouratt.

"These claims were long-ago investigated and debunked by the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the Attorney General’s Office." 

Fouratt has been outspoken in his defense of the Law Enforcement Academy in the midst of serious allegations from former instructors.

On Friday, KOB reported allegations of instructors who were encouraged to help cadets cheat on their exams at the academy.

On Sunday, KOB reported allegations that cadets were taught unaccredited curriculum at the academy.

Former instructors Gallegos, Voiles, Puga, Anthony Maxwell and their attorney, Joseph Campell, said all cadets who graduated after instruction with unaccredited curriculum have made questionable arrests, participated in questionable investigations, and their convictions should be questioned.

Fouratt responded to those claims in a KOB story Sunday, saying the former instructors' attorney was staging a 'shakedown' - offering silence for $6 million. Campbell told KOB a $6 million offer he brought to DPS was intended as a settlement agreement, and the promise of silence was a common non-disclosure and confidentiality agreement he offered to write into the settlement.

As for the missing gun allegations:
"First, the plaintiffs claimed that a large number of shotguns were missing," Fouratt wrote in an e-mail to KOB Wednesday. "DPS has previously proven that those shotguns were transferred on January 27, 2010, to the New Mexico State Police and eventually removed from its inventory."

"Second, the plaintiffs alleged that a missing firearm was recovered in Alaska. DPS has previously provided the plaintiffs, as well as KOB, with proof that this firearm legitimately was sold by the New Mexico State Police to a third-party long before it was recovered in Alaska," wrote Fouratt.

"Finally, at least three of the firearms that the plaintiffs allege were missing were found in the possession of the plaintiffs themselves.  These are just three examples of why the plaintiffs and their alleged firearms inventory are not considered credible or reliable," he wrote.

Fouratt also addressed Puga's suggestion firearms from the academy may have made it to Mexico.

"In support of his assertion that some of the allegedly missing firearms were in or headed for the Republic of Mexico, the former instructor was unable to cite a single shred or single syllable of evidence," said Fouratt. "Some two years later, there still is no such evidence." 

Fouratt has previously stated plainly that Gallegos, Voiles, Maxwell, and Puga were removed from their jobs against their wishes, and that is the motivation behind their whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.

"One would think that an experienced and reputable police officer would gather at least some evidence before making such a sensational and explosive claim," said Fouratt in his written statement to KOB Wednesday. 

"Instead of actual evidence, however, this former instructor apparently relied only on his own speculation and guesswork, neither of which had even a passing relationship with what turned out to be the actual facts."

KOB also reached out to Governor Susana Martinez's Deputy Chief of Staff Scott Darnell, but there has been no return call Wednesday. 

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