Socorro Feud Fallout: Socorro Police Dpt. Responds to Critical Comments

The fallout from the feud between El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles and Socorro Councilman Jesse Gandara Jr. continued Thursday.

On Tuesday the city representative filed a criminal complaint against a detective, which sparked sharp comments from the sheriff.

Though tensions had been building long before the criminal complaint was filed, they came to a head Wednesday after news of the complaint broke.

“As a citizen of this community, I think it’s my job to fight for these types of issues,” Gandara said of the complaint. The complaint details an incident Tuesday when Gandara was snapping shots of police activity near his home on a public street as deputies collected evidence for an investigation.

Gandara said a detective asked him to stop taking pictures. Gandara refused to do so, citing it as his right. According to the police report, Gandara says that’s when the detective “squeezed (his) hand causing him pain.”

Gandara has filed a criminal complaint against the detective for assault, with the Socorro Police Department.

Wiles spoke out about the incident shortly after, calling Gandara’s behavior “silly and inappropriate,” and saying the representative was blowing the incident out of proportion.

Wiles said the detective was in fact told he should not have touched Gandara’s camera. “The detective should not have grabbed Mr. Gandara’s camera, there’s no doubt about that,” said Wiles. However, Wiles added there’s more to the story.

Detectives had been collecting evidence near Gandara’s home because they were investigating whether public funds had been used to pave private driveways. They had brought an unidentified witness with them who did not want to be photographed.

“There was really a concern there from the detective for the witness. The witness was so afraid of retaliation from Mr. Gandara that he grabbed a sheriff’s baseball cap that was in the backseat and put it over his head, and was crouching down in the backseat so that Mr. Gandara wouldn’t see him,” said Wiles.

The Socorro Police Department is now handling the assault investigation, but Wiles said he wished an independent agency would take over. “I just wonder how much control the (Socorro Police Department) has, and how much independence that department has in regards to conducting investigations,” he said.

ABC-7 asked Socorro Police Department spokesman Dave Garcia if there was a conflict of interest in having his department investigate an assault charge filed by a city councilman. “I can’t imagine how there would be one, given the integrity of our officers,” said Garcia.

Meanwhile, neither side is expecting an easy fix. “It’s really a bigger picture here,” said Wiles. “When you talk about burying the hatchet, it’s more of, ‘Can that council get their affairs in order and act professionally and in the best interest of the community they serve?’ Since I’ve become sheriff, I cannot tell you the number of times that a citizen or one member or another of council has come in here pointing fingers back and forth.”

Garcia, who also serves as the spokesperson for the City Council, said, “Socorro is a community of leaders. And any time you have a community with this much leadership, you’re gonna have some friction evolve. But at the same time, Socorroans have never been known to run away from a fight.”