SUNLAND PARK, N.M. (Border Report) – Police officers in a community abutting the Mexican border just got new authority to pursue lawbreakers and assist in rescues beyond city limits.
Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart on Wednesday cross-commissioned 24 Sunland Park Police Department officers to exert their authority in unincorporated areas and pursue criminal investigations originating in their community elsewhere in the county.
“This has been a work in progress so we can provide a safer, expedited response to the community,” said Sunland Park Acting Police Chief Andres Morales. “It’s been a plethora of times we’ve had to break off from going into the county because we were not cross commissioned. That’s going to change.”
The immediate impact of the move is that Sunland Park officers will be able to rein in the habitual illegal target and leisure shooting in an area known as “The Wall,” which is plaguing the nearby community of Santa Teresa, Morales said. His officers will also provide shorter response times to calls when a sheriff’s deputy is not immediately available.
“Everybody is aware of ‘The Wall.’ We can assist Doña Ana deputies in entering that area and enforcing the trespassing and firing in that area,” the police chief said. “The citizens of Santa Teresa, the communities of Valencia and Sunland Park itself, they’ve all voiced their concerns and that is one of the reasons we did the cross commissioning, so we can provide a safer community.”
KTSM reported last month that stray bullets struck homes in Santa Teresa. One resident said the bullets struck a part of the home where he tends to his dogs and could’ve been struck. The bullets also have strayed onto the Doña Ana County Jetport, occasionally damaging property or striking parked aircraft.
Sunland Park until very recently had been plagued by constant migrant smuggling incidents and injuries to people coming over the border wall or a mountain with Mexico on the other side. Although immigration enforcement is a federal matter, cross commissioning empowers local police to assist in migrant rescues in the desert just beyond city limits, Stewart said.
“This is a force multiplier to be able to now bring the southern part of the county into alliance all the way to the north,” Stewart said. “Here we have a situation in which people live in the city but often are calling about a situation that’s happening in unincorporated areas. […] Now Sunland Park can respond immediately to where they believe the problem is and then alert our patrol with just a phone call.”
Morales said his officers didn’t need additional training because they already met peace officer’s qualifications to match those of sheriff’s deputies.
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