I was supposed to be presenting at the @The_OAH this afternoon about the police killings of Rito Canales and Antonio Cordova in Albuquerque, NM in January of 1972. Their deaths led to some important police reforms. This is their story in thread form. 1/15

Canales and Cordova were members of the Black Berets, the NM offshoot of the Brown Berets, a group that focused heavily on police brutality against Mexican Americans. Both men had a number of violent run ins with police, so the Black Berets were a natural choice for them. 2/15

For reasons that remain murky, Canales/Cordova were enticed by a man known as “Chapa” to steal dynamite at a construction site (the rumor was that the dynamite would go to Denver and the Crusade for Justice). Alas, Chapa was a police informant who had set up Canales/Cordova. 3/15

The night they were to rob the construction site, 10 officers from APD, NM State Police, & Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Dept lay in wait, some w/ deer rifles. When Canales/Cordova appeared, police yelled “freeze,” Cordova armed w/ an M-1 fired 1-2 shots. Police shot him dead. 4/15

Canales fled, police shot him down as he ran. Police claimed he was armed, he was not. The killings spawned several investigations. The 10 officers told inconsistent stories about the killings. For ex, some said Canales had shot at them, others claimed he had not. 5/15

Part of the state’s investigation focused on the police set up. Usually sting ops involving multiple police agencies required the formation of a task force (with unique oversight and rules of operation), which had not happened in this case. 6/15

Instead, the 10 officers had acted on their own, were in plain clothes, had used personal weapons, and had not been authorized to entrap the men. This was all sketchy and provoked no small amount of controversy and conspiracy theories. They were all exonerated. 7/15

The killing of Cordova passed muster, he was engaged in the commission of a felony, armed, had fired at police. The killing of Canales caused more scrutiny. He was unarmed, had fled, and had run toward a road where other police lay in wait...he could have been captured. 8/15

But as an accomplice to the commission of a felony, police had the legal right to shoot Canales as he fled. And so they did. So while there was more scrutiny, his killing also passed muster. 9/15

Here’s the rub: Canales and Cordova were both scheduled to appear on a popular local TV news show the following morning, to speak about police brutality in Albuquerque and corruption/brutality at the NM State Penitentiary, a huge, huge issue. That obv never happened. 10/15

Chapa, the police informant, disclosed years later that police wanted the two Berets dead: “there wasn’t no talk about…arresting them or breaking them. All this talk was about killing them…the two or three top Black Beret members, and that’s all they would talk about.” 11/15

So police used Chapa to entice Cordova and Canales to commit a felony the night before the schedule TV appearance to silence the two men. 12/15

Their deaths did spur the city to action. Chief Don Byrd, a fair minded officer (he left ABQ for Dallas in 1973 after police murdered 12 year old Santos Rodriguez), created a “minority officer recruitment program,” Police Athletic League, & began storefront police ops. 13/15

When Byrd left, Bob Stover, another reform minded chief, took over. He expanded Byrd’s initiatives, updated police academy curriculum (ex IQ/personality testing, human relations & conflict res training), & launched some important alternative adjudication and rehab programs. 14/15

It is of course a sad irony that police reform had to come at the cost of the lives of Rito Canales and Antonio Cordova. Alas that’s the way police reform typically works in most police forces. Both men had advocated for such reforms, the price to get them was their lives. 15/15