Abigail Salas:
Jaime, can you tell us about how your background has prepared you to serve as sheriff?
Jaime Quezada:
So born and raised here. First American, US American here, both my parents are immigrants. So, I can relate to some of the questions that people have here when it comes to the culture, the heritage and all that. I was a very young dad at age 15, started young. So had to grow up a little bit sooner than everyone. But even during that time, I was already seeing the issues that were happening with some of the high school students, which was gangs and guns and all that. But I had already wanted to be a cop since I was five years old. Cute quick story, I'll share it. Grew up going to Conley Elementary you have Gladys in Montana right there, intersection. And the school ended up calling my parents, telling him, you need to go get your son. He's at the intersection of Montana and Gladys, and he's directing traffic. Full uniform and everything. So yeah, policing has always been in my blood, even since the age of five. Again, born and raised here and all, knowing the people and all, my law enforcement experience. As an executive with the sheriff's office, I've been through several training. Even as a sergeant, I was always trying to educate myself for higher positions. Could I have promoted? I believe so. But I loved what I was doing at the time also. Was I aware of what SWAT, I went through SWAT schools. Was I aware of what they have to go through? Yes. Was I a SWAT member? No. Did I go through the DEA drug course? Yes. Why? Because I wanted to know what it was going to take. Did I go through, you know, a lot of the command courses? Of course, because I want to know what they were doing, how they can assist me when I'm trying to project justice for something. And so, my highest rank might have been with the Las Cruces Police Department, which I did 23 years as a sergeant, but I did undersheriff for almost two years.
Abigail Salas:
And why are you running for sheriff?
Jaime Quezada:
Because it's in my blood. I believe I come in with the right heart and mind for it. It's not my emotions leading me. It's the logic and the training and all that I've been through and that I've accepted. And I believe that I can do a very, very good job of bringing people back together. So, there's three things that I've been promoting myself. One is accountability. When I say accountability, it's within the sheriff's office first. I need them to know we have a set standard and how to elevate everybody's standard but understanding why we're doing it. I want to know their why also, and they understand my why, and let's try to incorporate it together so we're doing a stronger why for the community. Then comes the unity. The unity starts within our agency. Once the unity can happen within the agency, and then we're building a unity with the community where they start trusting us. I keep saying this in these forums, that when the public understands why we do our job, and how we're needing to do it and all, they're going to start trusting us more. It's going to be a natural trust that's going to start growing. Why? Because they know why we're doing it. So why am I wanting to become a sheriff? is because I want the people to understand why we do policing, but I also want police officers, deputies, anyone in law enforcement to understand our community, and I want to be that one person that can bring us all together.
Abigail Salas:
What are the top issues in the county, and how would you successfully address those issues?
Jaime Quezada:
One of the big things I want to focus on first is getting the deputies and all to trust their administration and try to get them to work together and work towards their wellness, their mental wellness. If they understand their mental wellness and how our bodies work when it comes to, again, like I said earlier, emotions and logic. And if they can get that training, and understand who they are themselves more, then they'll be able to understand the public more and why people, when people are triggered in bad situations, when they're chaotic and all, and the officer or the deputy can handle the situation better and de-escalate it or recognize this is not, I can't de-escalate it. I have, I'm gonna have to use some type of force to take control, but then also be able to articulate it well enough in a report that the public, again, will build trust and say, oh, I see why they did that. That's where the transparency part comes. The issue that we're having right now is the sheriff's office is very low on deputies right now. We have 7 districts. All of Dona Ana is broken up to 7 districts, which obviously that means a bunch of miles, right? And to have one deputy assigned to each district and a rover and a supervisor, it's just not enough. I mean, for anyone that's listening to this, it's not that, it'll help response time if we can get more deputies out there, but luckily there's some collaboration because you have Anthony P.D., Sunland Park P.D., the helps on Santa Teresa, Anthony's gonna help in that area, or even a Ohaparral, you have Otero County Sheriff's Office, State Police that'll help out, you know, if a deputy needs help or Mesilla. So, you have enough agencies that'll help out, but it's still, if I just rather have because they're going to be busy with their calls also. So, if we can have a better staffing, our response time will be quicker, our proactive, our eagerness to do proactive policing will be better. But even when it comes to the kids, so that's part of my next answer to all, this is our juvenile system is so hurting right now. We're so behind in so many levels and so many things. Why not go to schools? Why not have SROs in the schools again, where they can interact and understand even have those little one-on-one conversations with the police officers interacting with them. I love how the Las Cruces Police Department is doing a summer program with the kids and all that. Why isn't the sheriff's office not doing that?
Abigail Salas:
Technology is rapidly advancing the footprint of law enforcement. What technology that exists now in DASO would you expand upon and what new areas would you develop?
Jaime Quezada:
High kudos for Chief Story for having these people out there to bring in a real-time crime center. I would love to collaborate with him and get something going. I know that the new OEM building is being built and all that, and maybe we can collaborate and do something there like that. Technology, you have to use technology. I mean, it's a great tool, but you've got to be aware of its flaws and especially sending the messages. Do we need to use it to send a message out there? Yes. Again, building a trust and sending factual messages Yes, technology, real-time crime center would be great. Using more drones, train our officers to see what, you know, and just being open-minded with other agencies to see what we can use. Whether it's statistics from, you know, a survey, to apps, information, intel information sharing, you got to be open-minded because that's the new policing nowadays.
Abigail Salas:
The training budget for DASO is about $100,000 a year. Would you expand or contract it and why?
Jaime Quezada:
Oh my gosh, I would expand that greatly. It's hard to believe it's 100,000. And I'd have to go; I'd have to obviously look into and find out what line items or what and this and that. And it might be training under one certain thing, but no, we got to train our officers every single day. And if we're not going to train with other people coming in, then we got to train the trainers. within the facility so we can train our own. When I was there, I worked with many of the other agencies and in collaborating efforts because they have trained trainers there, whether it's LCPD, whether it's state police, whether it's Otero County, whether it's one of the federal agencies, the DA's office, we collaborate and work together. Why? Because we got to be that team. If chaos hits, we're going to depend on each other firsthand because we're right there, right? And it's our home. So why not train ourselves to that level first and then find that next level of training that we need and then we spend on that to bring people in or we send people out?
Abigail Salas:
And what role in budget, preparation, presentation, and monitoring do you see yourself in at DASO?
Jaime Quezada:
I hope I would have a very extreme high rollout because I would want to be able to collaborate with the county and the commissioners and explain to them where the money is being spent, why it's being spent, and where it needs to go. It's figuring out that budgeting, it's like a family. Okay, well, we got a budget. Times are hard right now. Are we going to spend on this or are we going to do here? And one thing that I learned when I was there is we have to communicate with our finance and the county finance and the commissioners because there's times we're going to want to move money from one place to another. And it can cause some headaches. And I saw that when we were there. But once you know the rules and the reasons why, and that it's not for personal reasons because someone wants to, I don't know, create a whole different unit that just really doesn't make sense. I'm making that up. Again, if we bring everybody to the table and communicate and explain it, if it's the logical reason to do something, I can't, and you have the facts to back it, I can't see why we can't get certain things balanced out financially. So, I would want to be very much involved, because if we can save them some money for the county in certain places, most definitely.
Abigail Salas:
And what else do you think is important for voters to know about your campaign?
Jaime Quezada:
It's very important for them to vote. Their involvement, like I say, whether I said in English or Spanish, su vota is su voz, it's very important that they vote regardless, but I hope that they're willing to take the time and listen to the right people and educate themselves and understand the value of their vote. We have 11 people running for sheriff. Some have experience, some might not, some might be outdated mindset. Some might be doing it for pick and choose however you want from when you look at everybody. I believe I'm in it for the right reasons. I'm not, I'm in it for the community. I go, I can start tomorrow and already start making some changes as if I had not left because I've been keeping track of stuff and what's going on and the concerns and all. But at the end of the day, I just want them to go and vote.
