The sit-in — peaceful by most accounts — was one of several demonstrations sparked by recent fatal shootings such as the death of James Boyd, a mentally ill homeless man shot by two APD officers in March. Officials cancelled the city council meeting that night and 13 protesters were arrested.
Among those protesters was David Correia, an associate professor of American Studies who specializes in environmental politics. Correia caught the attention of the local media when he was arrested on June 2 for alleged battery on a police officer during the sit-in — a charge he said was completely unfounded.
James Boyd’s death and the ensuing protests may have put his name in the papers, but Correia was involved in efforts against police violence in Albuquerque long before that. He said he became interested in it while doing research for his book “ Properties of Violence ,” an account of the centuries-long struggle over land grants in northern New Mexico. Correia said he learned how federal and state police violence was used against activists trying to reclaim the grants in the 1960s and ‘70s.
His two areas of research and activism — environmental movements and police violence — are not as disconnected as one might think, he said.
“It was precisely because rural communities in northern New Mexico were organizing themselves to defend their rights to access land and water that they became a target of police violence,” Correia said.
He started writing for publications like Counterpunch and La Jicarita, a community newspaper focused on environmental justice in New Mexico, in 2011. He also attended anti-police brutality protests, which at the time were mainly attended by victims’ family members, he said.
“The violence and police killings of the 1970s have returned,” Correia wrote in an article for Counterpunch called “The Return of the Albuquerque Death Squads,” nearly three years before James Boyd’s death.
He said he received criticism for his assertion that APD operated similarly to a death squad, targeting specific populations such as Native Americans, Hispanics and the mentally ill. However, Correia said recent events have changed the way many people react to his writings.
“When James Boyd was killed and people saw that video, I think many recognized the things we had been saying for years were really true,” Correia said.
While he considers the increased awareness of police violence a positive step, he said the causes are more systemic than many activists claim. Poor training, funding and leadership in APD as well as bad judgment on the part of individual officers have all been cited as causes of police violence since the controversy erupted. Correia argues that the problem is much bigger.
“What we need to recognize is that police violence is part of a pattern in society that is, at its heart, is about socio-spatial control of racialized populations and the poor,” Correia said. He cited poverty, economic inequality and limited access to housing, education and food among the problems that must be addressed before police violence can be eradicated.
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Several weeks after Boyd’s death, Correia registered as a faculty expert to give media interviews about police violence and environmental justice on behalf of UNM, answering what he said was “an explicit call for political engagement” from Provost Chaouki Abdallah. Correia said his role as a faculty expert made UNM’s official statement about his arrest surprising.
“The University of New Mexico emphasizes that Correia’s actions, statements and opinions are his own as a private citizen, and do not reflect any official views of the University or its Board of Regents,” the statement read.
Correia said this contradicted the encouragement he had previously received from the administration regarding his political and community involvement.
UNM did not take punitive action against Correia because of his arrest. He said that the problem with the statement was that it discourages faculty from taking action to create positive social change.
“I wasn’t interested in the University defending me personally,” Correia said. “Rather, I wanted them to defend the expectation that UNM faculty engage in the most controversial issues that confront our communities.”
Despite UNM’s response, Correia is continuing his work on environmental and social justice. He is currently working on a book about the politics of climate change. He said he will continue to participate in community events and protests.
“I think that if we’re going to take these issues seriously or expect our students to take them seriously, then we have a moral obligation to do something more than just write about them,” Correia said.
He said he encourages students to engage in their community, and stresses the importance of questioning the underlying causes of problems like police brutality.
“These questions provoke a much larger conversation about what kind of world we want to live in and what kind of city we want to live in,” Correia said.
Lena Guidi is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.
