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Bill Aims To Help Search For Missing: New law would centralize N.M. lists, require training
Jan 13, 2010 (Albuquerque Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A group of lawmakers and law enforcement officials are proposing legislation for the coming session they say will make missing persons easier to find.
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and state Sen. Sander Rue, a West Side Republican, announced the proposed Missing Persons and Reporting Act at a news conference Tuesday.
If Gov. Bill Richardson signs the bill, Denish said it will centralize New Mexico's missing persons lists, mandate training on missing persons cases for law enforcement and allow for more accurate tracking of statistics.
The bill, which Rue will sponsor, is a product of one of several working groups Denish put together in the wake of the discovery of 11 women's remains in shallow graves on Albuquerque's West Mesa.
One of the groups discovered that of the 1,142 active New Mexico missing persons cases entered into the National Crime Information Centers database, only about 400 of those were recorded in a similar state database known as the New Mexico Missing Persons Clearinghouse.
Only 18 of the cases are listed on the publicly accessible component of the state clearinghouse.
At least nine of the West Mesa vict ims had been reported missing and their cases entered into NCIC. None, however, were entered into the state clearinghouse.
State law says all missing persons cases in New Mexico shall be entered into both databases.
State Police Lt. Robert Schilling said at the news conference that a new software program that is in the "design phase" will allow authorities to enter missing persons into the NCIC database and the state clearinghouse simultaneously.
Missing persons case training would be part of mandated state curriculum under the proposed bill. It would also allow the attorney general to discipline or even fire officers who don't comply with proposed new regulations under the act.
The bill would also create increased data sharing on missing persons cases among the state's law enforcement agencies.
"More contact between law enforcement and the media about missing persons -- especially should patterns of missing persons arise, such as during the period of time when the young women who were found on the West Side went missing," Denish said at the news conference. "There was a pattern there; it was just hard to determine. Determining these patterns will be aided greatly by the Missing Persons Clearinghouse."
Albuquerque Police Chief Ray Schultz said he was pleased to see a portion of the bill that would create a statewide repository for dental records that law enforcement can access.
Several of the West Mesa victims were identified through dental records, but only after investigators sent out a plea to the state's dentists for help.
"This is definitely a step in the right direction," Schultz said. "We would eventually like to see a repository for medical records and DNA, too. That would be hugely helpful to investigators."
To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to
http://www.abqjournal.com. Copyright (c) 2010, Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
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