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Thursday, February 28, 2008

Drug Problem Motivated Chief

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    When the new Mountainair police chief moved to southern Torrance County more than three years ago, he was surprised when he saw what seemed like a drug deal taking place on Broadway in the small town.
    "There was a van parked right down the street from us. It was a lady and her children in cold weather. It was in December of 2004, so it's cold out, and she's sitting in the car for hours at a time. People are coming by and reaching in the window of the van and leaving with something. This was consistent with drug dealing," Chief Edward vonKutzleben said in a phone interview.
    Seeing this behavior happen on the main street of town made vonKutzleben, 48, want to "improve things" in his new community by joining law enforcement.
    "There's a sense of hopelessness. There's not a lot of job opportunity here," vonKutzleben said about the area.
    VonKutzleben was appointed to the job of police officer on June 2, 2006, by the mayor, but the appointment "took some wrestling to get" through city council because of his age, he said.
    VonKutzleben "made it through" the police academy and was appointed police chief last August, he said.
    Mountainair has three officers including a sergeant and two commissioned officers.
    Drugs are not the only things that concern vonKutzleben about Mountainair.
    During a Torrance County Domestic Violence Task Force meeting Feb. 19, vonKutzleben said after 20 months "as a cop" he believed that "we're going to have to change the whole mind-set in the town of Mountainair" regarding domestic violence.
    In a phone interview after the meeting, the chief explained.
    "Some of the worst calls I go on are the domestic violence ones. At one time they loved each other. Most of them still do but they have their problems," vonKutzleben said. "Most times there are kids involved. It's a circle that goes unbroken."
    Mountainair Mayor Velta Gilley also believes domestic violence is a difficult problem to tackle because it is a "learned problem."
    To combat the domestic violence and drug problem that are "not symptomatic to Mountainair but (are) everywhere," the town is trying "very hard to provide things for kids to do," Gilley said.
    "There's (also) a very pro-active group," connected with Linda Filippi at the school, Gilley said.
    The School Health Advisory Council is made up of health care providers, community members, parents, teachers and students who meet monthly to address key issues in the community, said Filippi, coordinator for Mustang Health Center and facilitator for SHAC.
    SHAC, meeting since September, is broken up into five subgroups including nutrition, underage drinking, pandemic flu, teen sexuality and violence prevention.
    The violence prevention group partly tackles the problem of domestic violence in the community.
    There were 26 calls reporting domestic violence in the Mountainair area made to the 911 dispatch center from August through February, said Jennifer Cordova, day-shift dispatch supervisor. Cordova said that some of the calls were from repeat offenders.
    There were no calls made to report drug deals in the Mountainair area during that same time period, Cordova said.
    Calls may have also been made to the Mountainair Police Department during that period, Cordova said.