This week on New Mexico in Focus, two advocates examine a recording that captures APD officers using racial slurs and violent language, taken moments after police shot and killed a 30-year-old man.

Daniel Williams of the ACLU of New Mexico tells Executive Producer Jeff Proctor why that recorded conversation is indicative of the “culture of aggression” at the Albuquerque Police Department.

Then, Tiffany Jiron of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women talks to Proctor about the troubled history with APD and the city’s Indigenous community.  

Senior Producer Lou DiVizio looks at the minimum wage employees are paid across the state, as Albuquerque’s City Council considers adjusting the rate.  

Gabrielle Uballez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, talks to correspondent Russell Contreras about her work searching for new solutions to child poverty and why she wanted to take the issue on.     

All New Mexicans know how important water is to our state, but “water management” isn’t a neutral term.  In conversation with Our Land Senior Producer Laura Paskus and in her new book, “Fluid Geographies,” Dr. K. Maria Lane analyzes how the state’s authority over water isn’t based on objective science but is part of a larger structure of moving water and authority away from the people who lived here and into the control of Anglos.

NMiF airs on NMPBS 5.1 (KNME HD) on Friday, Aug. 16 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 18 at 7 a.m., and streaming on the PBS video app.    

NMiF Segments

Racist Remarks by Officers and APD’s ‘Culture of Aggression’ 
Correspondent
Jeff Proctor 

Guest 
Daniel Williams, Policing Policy Advocate, ACLU of New Mexico 

APD's Troubling History with Indigenous Community 
Correspondent
Jeff Proctor 

Guest
Tiffany Jiron, executive director, Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women 

Comparing Minimum Wage Rates Across New Mexico 
Correspondent
Lou DiVizio 

Fighting Child Poverty in NM  
Correspondent
Russell Contreras  

Guest 
Gabrielle Uballez, executive director, New Mexico Voices for Children 

Talking Water Management with ‘Fluid Geographies’ Author 
Correspondent
Laura Paskus 

Guest
K. Maria Lane, UNM professor and author, "Fluid Geographies: Water, Science, and Settler Colonialism in New Mexico" 

Host
Lou DiVizio 

New Mexico in Focus is the New Mexico PBS prime-time news magazine show covering the events, issues, and people shaping life in New Mexico and the Southwest. NMiF takes a multi-layered look at social, political, economic health, education, and art issues and explores them in-depth with a critical eye to give them context beyond the "news of the moment."

NMPBS Executive Producer, Public Affairs, is Jeff Proctor. New Mexico in Focus's senior producer for public affairs is Lou DiVizio. “Our Land” Senior Producer is Laura Paskus. The producer of New Mexico in Focus is Antonio Sanchez, and co-producer is Kathy Wimmer.

Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by the McCune Charitable Foundation and Viewers Like You.

Funding for the Your New Mexico Government Project comes from the Thornburg Foundation and New Mexico Local News Fund.

The Neeper Natural History Programming Fund for KNME-TV provides funding for Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present & Future.