The SCORE
The Sandoval County Online Reporting Enterprise
Rio Rancho, N.M.
New Mexico's first totally online commuity newspaper was last updated on Monday, May 16, 2009 at 10 p.m.
The chairman of the Sandoval County Commission blasted Albuquerque television reporter Larry Barker
on Saturday, accusing the reporter of “deliberate omission of facts”
and that he was not “willing to forego his preconceived storylines and
give unbiased review of the facts” during two reports last month.
Writing in the monthly “County Line” column that commission chairman have been offering for years, Don Leonard
wrote, “For both stories, county staff repeatedly gave Mr. Barker
complete assistance and all information possible. I and other county
employees offered to go on-camera with Mr. Barker, recognizing there
were specific aspects of the accident and our personnel files that we
were barred from discussing.”
A copy of the column was e-mailed
to the station so that either Barker or someone from the station’s
administration could respond. A reporter at the station who answered
the phone at the news desk said neither the news director Barker would
be available until Monday to comment.
A subsequent message left on Barker's answering machine requesting a response was not returned.
“We’ve all seen the
camera-in-the face, jump-from-the-bushes interviews and sharp retorts
that are Mr. Barker’s trademark attempts to boost stories that may or
may not be factual,” Leonard wrote. “Until now, however, I had not
experienced his deliberate omission of facts when they failed to
justify his preconceived notions.”
The first story, in early
November, looked at a non-injury traffic accident in Rio Rancho
involving a 28-year veteran detention officer who was driving a county
vehicle.
“While our attorneys urged us not to comment on
specifics of the accident, we did provide Mr. Barker with extensive
information regarding the incident,” Leonard wrote. “We cited specific
portions of state law that delineate the authorizing of emergency
vehicles. We even gave details on the training of detention center
officers and the center’s operating procedures, other than those
portions that would have compromised center security.
“Yet his
TV show portrayed the action as being somehow illegal, unjustified and
almost as a ‘whim’ by the officer, and that Sandoval County refused to
discuss the matter.”
Barker’s second story involved the termination of a Center probationary employee after just four months.
“While
we are prohibited from releasing specific details from personnel files,
Mr. Barker failed to consider any of the information we were allowed to
provide,” Leonard wrote. “He would not stray from his misconceived idea
that the employee was fired solely for acting as a ‘good Samaritan’
during an incident in Albuquerque.
“That premise, as Mr. Barker was quite aware, is simply not the case.“
Leonard wrote, “For both
stories, county staff repeatedly gave Mr. Barker complete assistance
and all information possible. I and other county employees offered to
go on-camera with Mr. Barker, recognizing there were specific aspects
of the accident and our personnel files that we were barred from
discussing.”
Leonard praised county detention center Jerry Paskiewicz
for his “exemplary career in law enforcement spanning more than 30
years, including 18 years as head of Sandoval County’s
nationally-recognized Detention Center. “
“Jerry and his team
have shaped the Center into a model of security and efficiency,”
Leonard wrote. “Training of the Center’s employees has honed the staff
for vigilant – and yet humane – treatment of inmates, some of whom are
being held for the most horrendous of crimes.”
“For their
diligence, professionalism and sense of duty, we owe Jerry, his
management team and all of our Detention Center employees our deepest
appreciation. They know and perform their very difficult jobs
exceptionally well.
“That’s why, for me at least, I was especially dismayed by (the) two separate so-called investigative news reports."
