Illustration by Franco Zacha for Searchlight New Mexico
This story contains descriptions and images of physical abuse and injuries to minors.
Just before lunchtime on Oct. 24 of this year, an employee of the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department heard what sounded like an argument between two teenage boys coming from inside a room in the agency’s Albuquerque office building, where the boys had been living. As the argument appeared to escalate into a fight, the employee called for a private security guard to intervene.
This article was originally published by Searchlight New Mexico, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that seeks to empower New Mexicans to demand honest and effective public policy. It is republished here with permission.
According to a police report and interviews with eyewitnesses, the guard walked into the room and picked one of the boys up, his feet dangling off the floor, and then threw him across the room. While the guard held the other boy on the ground, the first boy tried to grab his legs; the guard picked up that boy and threw him once, then twice, then at least one more time, at one point hitting the boy’s head against a metal door frame.
Descriptions of the altercation vary — in interviews with state police, the guard, an employee of a global firm called Securitas, said he was “only using limited force,” and that one of the boys had punched him and tried to grab his duty belt. One CYFD employee told police the response was appropriate, while another employee who was there said that the way the guard handled the situation was “rough” — a description that matches two others given to Searchlight by witnesses, one of whom said the guard “beat the shit out of” one of the boys.
After the dust settled, CYFD took both boys to Presbyterian Hospital to be assessed. The hospital released them back to CYFD…