ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two years ago, the City of Albuquerque piloted the Violence Intervention Program at West Mesa High School.

The goal was to connect the most at-risk teenagers with the help they need to avoid falling victim to gun violence.

Teachers and staff refer students to the program. They refer students they believe are at high risk of involvement in gun violence.

So far, West Mesa High School is the only high school in the program. This past year, 27 students joined the program, which connected them to workshops and mental health resources.

“The trainer then tries to engage and say, ‘Look, here’s how we can help pull you out.’ Maybe there are some CYFD issues, there’s no one who has no income in your house. So let’s get you subsidized housing for your parents. Let’s get you diapers for your little brother,” Mayor Tim Keller said.

Mayor Keller said it has had a positive impact on their school’s performance.

“One example is a senior who had both major and minor offenses. They had not reoffended, their GPA had come from 0.33 to 3.14, and attendance had also improved. Working with ACS and the VIP program, they were connected to resources,” the mayor said.

“This program I think is, literally, saving lives at West Mesa.”

Now, standing alongside Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Scott Elder, the mayor is calling for the VIP to expand.

The cost of it is $1,787,136 for the 2024-25 school year. That money would staff this program at all 16 APS high schools.

The mayor said it’s a good investment.

“If the state can deliver the funding, we can deliver the results,” he stated.

APS and the City of Albuquerque plan to ask for this money in the legislative session in January. They hope the budget surpluses will equate to funding for the program.

Imposing headlines blazed across the top of the Dec. 8, 1941, Albuquerque Journal, reporting the devastating Japanese attack the day before on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

Another story high up on the Journal’s front page that day told how members of New Mexico’s National Guard, as well as Air Force units that had been stationed in Albuquerque, were in the war zone in the Philippines.

The article noted the New Mexico guardsmen had been in the Philippines about two months.

“Despite their short time in the islands, the members have informed relatives here that they were ready for any eventuality.”

That eventuality was America’s entry into World War II.

Today, as we remember American military personnel and civilians killed at Pearl Harbor, as well as those who survived the attack, we should also remember that New Mexico affected the war and the war reshaped New Mexico.

Start to finish

A month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippines, launching the Battle of Bataan, which would continue until American and Filipino troops were forced to surrender on April 9, 1942.

Among those battling the Japanese on the Bataan Peninsula were more than 1,800 New Mexicans, state guardsmen serving in the 200th Coast Artillery and the 515th Coast Artillery. Killed in the fighting or captured and subjected to a harsh captivity, fewer than half of these New Mexicans survived the war.

Fast-forward to July 16, 1945, and the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity Site on what is now New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range.

New Mexico and its residents were in the thick of the fight from start to finish.

According to “New Mexico in World War II” (Arcadia Publishing, 2021) by New Mexico authors Richard Melzer and John Taylor, the state provided more servicemen and servicewomen per capita than any other during World War II — and also suffered the highest casualty rate per capita.

Melzer and Taylor report that more than 2,200 New Mexicans died in the war. They also write that eight New Mexicans received the Medal of Honor for valor displayed during World War II.

Navajo code talkers from our state developed a code based on their language and culture that the Japanese were never able to break, thus providing the U.S. with a distinct advantage during key battles in the South Pacific.

New Mexico resident Ernie Pyle and New Mexico native Bill Mauldin boosted morale among servicemen and servicewomen and their families on the home front with newspaper columns and cartoons respectively.

Pyle, a traveling newspaper columnist for Scripps-Howard, was living in Albuquerque when the war started.

At first he sent back columns about Americans serving in the various military branches in the European Theater of war. Then he did the same from the South Pacific before he was killed by Japanese gunfire during the battle of Okinawa.

Mauldin was with the 45th Infantry Division during the war.

His cartooning skills eventually got him transferred to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military newspaper, where his cartoons depicting ordinary dogface soldiers Willie and Joe put smiles on the faces of servicemen confronting the many horrors of war.

Mauldin, who survived the war and lived until 2003, and Pyle won Pulitzers for their work during the conflict. You can learn more about Pyle by visiting his Albuquerque house, which is now the Ernie Pyle Public Library, 900 Girard SE.

Remembering and learning

Like most states, New Mexico had prisoner of war camps for German and Italian soldiers.

According to Melzer and Taylor, there was one near Roswell, another near Lordsburg, 19 smaller camps near cities such as Albuquerque and Las Cruces and one at Fort Stanton for German merchant marines rescued from a sinking passenger ship.

One of our country’s darkest moves was the establishing of relocation camps for Japanese-Americans because it was feared they may be loyal to and willing to assist Japan.

Japanese-American men considered especially suspicious were separated from their families and sent to internment camps, two of which were in Santa Fe and Lordsburg.

But likely, especially with the recent release of the movie “Oppenheimer,” about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, New Mexico will be thought of by most as the state in which the weapons that ended the war were developed.

Oppenheimer directed the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic bombs, at Los Alamos. And, as mentioned earlier, the first atomic bomb was exploded during a test in New Mexico.

Because of that, a state that was mostly rural in 1941, with many of its slightly more than 500,000 people living without electricity, indoor plumbing and paved roads, is now home to nuclear research facilities — Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

World War II’s fighting never reached New Mexico, but the state was changed forever when the attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the United States into the war 82 years ago.

Today would be a good day to visit the Pearl Harbor Monument at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial, 1100 Louisiana SE, or stop by Bataan Memorial Park, 748 Tulane NE.

Go to the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, 601 Eubank SE or visit Ernie Pyle’s house.

Today is a good day for remembering and for learning.

KANW News Thanks Ollie Reed, Jr and Albuquerque Journal for letting us share their article.

(SANTA FE, N.M.) — Facebook and Instagram fail to protect underage users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and let adults solicit pornographic imagery from them, New Mexico’s attorney general alleges in a lawsuit that follows an undercover online investigation.

“Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a statement Wednesday.

The civil lawsuit filed late Tuesday against Meta Platforms Inc. in state court also names its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, as a defendant.

In addition, the suit claims Meta “harms children and teenagers through the addictive design of its platform, degrading users’ mental health, their sense of self-worth, and their physical safety,” Torrez’s office said in a statement.

Those claims echo a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states, including California and New York, against Meta that alleges Instagram and Facebook include features deliberately designed to hook children, contributing to the youth mental health crisis and leading to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. New Mexico was not a party to that lawsuit.

Investigators in New Mexico created decoy accounts of children 14 years and younger that Torrez’s office said were served sexually explicit images even when the child expressed no interest in them. State prosecutors claim that Meta let dozens of adults find, contact and encourage children to provide sexually explicit and pornographic images.

The accounts also received recommendations to join unmoderated Facebook groups devoted to facilitating commercial sex, investigators said, adding that Meta also let its users find, share, and sell “an enormous volume of child pornography.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torrez said, accusing Meta’s executives of prioritizing “engagement and ad revenue over the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society.”

Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, California, did not directly respond to the New Mexico lawsuit’s allegations, but said that it works hard to protect young users with a serious commitment of resources.

“We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” the company said. “In one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies.”

Company spokesman Andy Stone pointed to a company report detailing the millions of tips Facebook and Instagram sent to the National Center in the third quarter of 2023 — including 48,000 involving inappropriate interactions that could include an adult soliciting child sexual abuse material directly from a minor or attempting to meet with one in person.

Critics including former employees have long complained that Meta’s largely automated content moderation systems are ill-equipped to identify and adequately eliminate abusive behavior on its platforms.