By Rozanna M. Martinez
The Albuquerque Journal
RIO RANGO, N.M. — Rio Rancho police will help residents in some parts of the city “take back” their neighborhoods April 26 by cleaning up graffiti, cracking down on suspected gang activity and getting owners to fix up deteriorating properties.
The cleanup is part of the Community Partnership Initiative, a Rio Rancho community policing effort. The event will focus on neighborhoods that lie within police beats 1 and 2, according to Rio Rancho police Lt. Pete Camacho.
Beat 1 is north of Northern, west of Terrene Road and south of Mariposa Ranch. Beat 2 is west of Unser, south of Northern and bordering Albuquerque.
“We started to see a progression of graffiti and of apartment complexes that are just deteriorating,” Camacho said. “We think it’s time to take it back for the law-abiding citizens in those neighborhoods.”
Rio Rancho police are asking residents to help cover up graffiti and report taggers and other suspicious activities. Local businesses are being asked to donate paint and supplies to help with the effort.
City code enforcement officers will be out April 26 to identify homes with code violations and issue citations, Camacho said.
On the same day, police officers with the gang enforcement team will serve warrants on gang members in those areas, Camacho said.
Rio Rancho police and probation and parole officers plan to work together to pull warrants for known gang members and pick them up, he said.
Probation and parole officers also will be visiting high-risk clients who are gang members, according to Camacho. If they are violating their parole or probation, they will go to jail, he said.
“We are basically trying to send a message to gang members in Rio Rancho that we have zero tolerance,” Camacho said.
Rio Rancho police Cpl. Andrew Rodriguez, who has helped organize the gang enforcement team’s participation in the event, said he is looking forward to serving warrants on vandals who have been tagging the area.
Rodriguez has been with the department about 1 1/2 years. He previously worked for the Los Angeles Police Department for 11 years.
“The thing that attracted me to Rio Rancho was how clean it was,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t see the blight like in (Los Angeles) and South Central (Los Angeles). (Rio Rancho) was a dreamland, a Utopia.”
As Rio Rancho grows, the rate of crime increases, Rodriguez said. It might not be a population the size of Los Angeles, but the community has to “be aware and on top of things” so Rio Rancho doesn’t become neighborhoods of blight, he said.
“We’re seeing a genesis in the making of a gang right now,” Rodriguez said. “The tagging is mostly being done by lower ranks of a gang who go out and attempt to mark a territory in Rio Rancho.”
Rodriguez said there’s no specific territory for gangs in Rio Rancho so the city is “a great frontier” for gang members if the community allows it to happen.
He encourages residents to report graffiti and gang activity to Sandoval County Regional Dispatch at 891-7226.
Any person or community and civic groups interested in participating in the cleanup can call 891-5902 beforehand so police will know how many people to expect.
Participants should meet at 10 a.m. April 26 at the Wal-Mart at Unser and Southern.
copyright 2008 The Albuquerque Journal