By Rene Romo
Albuquerque Journal
LAS CRUCES — A former Hobbs police officer, who is black, has sued the police department there claiming he was wrongfully forced out of his job one month after supervisors learned he was dating an Anglo woman, an officer in another police department.
In the civil suit filed this week in state District Court in Santa Fe, Joshua Cook claims that after police supervisors learned in June 2008 that he was dating the Anglo woman, they “began to engage in behavior to undermine” his ability to remain employed by the force and to continue attending the Southeastern New Mexico Regional Law Enforcement Training Academy.
Cook was forced to resign when he was eight days short of graduating from the Hobbsbased police academy, the suit says.
Named as defendants are Hobbs Police Chief J.D. Sanders, Lt. Brian Belyeu, the southeastern police academy, and Arthur Ortiz, director of the state Law Enforcement Academy in Santa Fe.
Hobbs police spokesman Michael Stone said city officials had not received a copy of the lawsuit to review as of Thursday, but added, "... The city of Hobbs will vigorously defend the actions of the city and its employees.”
Ortiz could not be reached.
The suit alleges Hobbs police administrators “manufactured” or “exaggerated” claims against Cook’s character and competence, and that “multiple attempts” were made to encourage Cook’s girlfriend to break off the relationship. The suit does not specify who attempted to scuttle Cook’s relationship.
According to the lawsuit, the reasons the police department cited for seeking Cook’s departure included: he was “disrespectful and intoxicated” during an off-duty incident at a movie theater; he “drove his private vehicle parallel to a marked State Police vehicle in a disrespectful manner;" and that he repeatedly drove his police car at excessive speeds or recklessly.
The allegations about Cook’s driving, the suit contends, were based on flawed data taken from a malfunctioning video camera inside the police car.
Cook’s lawsuit says other officers placed in a bad light by the malfunctioning equipment were not punished as he was.
Information provided by the Hobbs Police Department, the suit contends, led to Cook’s rejection by the Border Patrol and the Law Enforcement Academy in Santa Fe.
Copyright 2010 Albuquerque Journal