New Mexico
CYFD launches new center to keep foster kids from sleeping in offices
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Foster teens sleeping overnight in office buildings: it’s a problem the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD) has promised to fix, as it struggles to find foster families. Now, the department is opening up what it calls a solution. KRQE News 13 spoke with CYFD about those plans and others who feel its not enough.
“It’s been a long year for me since I came onboard a year ago, in really trying to restructure the agency,” said Teresa Casados, cabinet secretary for CYFD. One of the problems CYFD has dealt with as the state faces a lack of foster families surrounds kids and teens staying overnight in their offices—where conflicts between workers and foster children have escalated to the point of 9-1-1 calls.
The situation—highlighted in a KRQE Investigates report—has been hard to fix according to Casados, who says the agency has had little luck signing up new foster parents.
“From the 124 events that I think we’ve had, we had 19 people that actually engaged with us after those events,” Casados said. Despite low interest, the department’s been working to get kids out of CYFD’s offices in a different way: a new multipurpose home for boys aged 12 and up in Albuquerque.
“It’s a CYFD facility that we have. It used to be the Girl’s Reintegration Center, and we’ve made some upgrades to that location. AMI Kids is operating that for us,” Casados said.
The facility has four bedrooms with three beds to a room, a classroom, and an outdoor recreation area. Staff includes a chef, a nurse, and therapists onsite. Casados says they have partnerships with a charter school and a local community college to do online school and have a tutor onsite. They also have a partnership with Workforce Solutions.
“It’s really about normalcy for those kids and providing them the environment that will prepare them for you know, life. Some of these are older youth. They’re 15, 16, 17 years old,” Casados said.
“We’re still continuing to look for placement, but if they end up going into Fostering Connections or transitional living for youth, we want to make sure they’re prepared and have the skills to be successful,” Casados said.
So far, five kids are living there. The facility has the capacity for 12, and Casados hopes to have the rest of the boys living in the offices transition to the center by month’s end.
However, some advocates aren’t thrilled with the venture, saying the state has other obligations it still needs to meet. Jesse Clifton, an attorney with Disability Rights New Mexico, says CYFD has already settled a lawsuit in 2020 that highlighted the overuse of congregate care.
“The allegations of that lawsuit in general terms alleged that children who have been subject to abuse and neglect and had been brought into the custody of the state of New Mexico were further subjected to more abuse and neglect as opposed to updating the resources and supports they needed to thrive,” Clifton said.
“The lawsuit aimed at total system reform, and the lawsuit was brought in 2018 and it settled in 2020 with the state agreeing that the child welfare system in New Mexico was in need of pretty total reform,” Clifton said, “Those have overwhelmingly been disappointing progress reports as there’s much of the settlement that has yet to be satisfied and many of the deadlines have passed.”
He says prior to the lawsuit, children were inappropriately housed in group care: “Everyone has always agreed, I mean from the time of the settlement agreement to the corrective action plan which was as recent as last year—children belong in family homes. That’s the goal.”
Clifton says the new center doesn’t align with that goal. “That term multi-service home, multipurpose home, is a little bit of a misnomer because for all of its amenities is not a family home. It’s still congregate care and so we just have to keep those realities in mind,” Clifton said, “While this is movement of some kind, it’s not the movement that was agreed to and it’s not again the solution. This is more of a band-aid than a solution.”
Casados says the goal here is ending the office stays: “I think this is the better of those two situations, but our goal really is to make sure we can get those kids into permanent placement in a family-like setting…You know locations like this, you know multiservice homes are not ideal and there will be some people that don’t think this is the best course of action for us to take. We just want to make sure we’re meeting the needs of the kids.”
CYFD is also working to create a similar home for girls in Albuquerque who are currently staying in their offices.
CYFD emphasizes: they are looking for people to become foster parents to help with this issue. “Any help that we can get in encouraging individuals across the state to become foster families or even to give it a try if they want to be a respite family and try that slowly, we’d love to have a conversation with them about that,” Casados said.
For more information on becoming a foster parent, head to CYFD’s website here.
Alec Baldwin ‘Rust’ case dismissed by judge over ‘suppressed’ evidence
Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charge was abruptly dismissed with prejudice. He cannot be retried for involuntary manslaughter.
Alec Baldwin, whose involuntary manslaughter case was dismissed last summer over suppressed evidence, is taking the fatal 2021 “Rust” set shooting back to the court room.
The actor on Thursday filed a civil lawsuit in Santa Fe County District Court alleging prosecutors violated his civil rights and defamed him. The defendants named in the filing included special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, personnel within the district attorney’s office for New Mexico’s First Judicial District and members of the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.
The complaint detailed Baldwin’s claims that prosecutors and investigators “conspired to procure a groundless indictment against Baldwin” by not following the proper criminal process and also intentionally kept exculpatory evidence from the defense.
In a statement to USA TODAY, Morrissey said, “In October 2023 the prosecution team became aware that Mr. Baldwin intended to file a retaliatory civil lawsuit. We look forward to our day in court.”
USA TODAY has reached out to lawyers for Baldwin as well as the DA’s office for comment. The sheriff’s office declined to comment.
Last summer, Baldwin’s lawyer Alex Spiro forewarned the sheriff’s office and prosecutor in letters sent to the parties on July 12 to preserve evidence for “potential for future litigation,” according to copies obtained at the time by USA TODAY.
The actor and producer’s attorney advised Morrissey and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza to preserve all “devices, hard drives, emails, text messages, and other electronic communications” in addition to “documents, records, electronically stored information (‘ESI’), and other materials and data existing in any form whatsoever, that are actually or potentially relevant or relate in any way to the investigation(s) and/or prosecution(s) conducted by the State in connection with the death of Halyna Hutchins.”
The filing comes nearly six months after First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer abruptly dismissed the criminal case against Baldwin on the grounds that prosecutors and law enforcement withheld evidence that might be favorable to the actor’s defense. In October, she upheld her dismissal; though prosecutors appealed the judge’s decision in November, they withdrew the notice of appeal the following month.
Baldwin’s criminal charge stemmed from an Oct. 21, 2021, incident in which Baldwin’s prop gun, which he said he’d been told did not contain live ammunition, discharged during a rehearsal for the movie, killing 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
‘No verdict’ can ‘undo the trauma’ of criminal case against Alec Baldwin, lawsuit says
Baldwin’s legal complaint accused New Mexico investigators and prosecutors of being ” blinded by their desire to convict Alec Baldwin for all the wrong reasons, and at any cost, for the October 2021 accidental shooting of Halyna Hutchins.”
“Defendants sought at every turn to scapegoat Baldwin for the acts and omissions of others, regardless of the evidence or the law,” the filing continued.
Baldwin seeks a jury trial and an award of financial compensation for his “injuries suffered” as well as punitive damages against the defendants.
“Defendants must now be held accountable for their malicious and unlawful pursuit of Baldwin,” the lawsuit states. “Although no verdict in this civil case can undo the trauma the State’s threat of conviction and incarceration has inflicted, Alec Baldwin has filed this action to hold Defendants responsible for their appalling violations of the laws that governed their work.”
Why was Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case dismissed?
The conclusion of Baldwin’s case with the state of New Mexico arrived more than two years after the on-set tragedy. Sommer dismissed the charge with prejudice, meaning prosecutors cannot refile the same claim.
Baldwin’s lawyers alleged in their filing that Santa Fe sheriffs and state prosecutors “concealed” evidence that could be linked to the source of the bullet that killed Hutchins. Prosecutors and sheriffs argued the evidence had no relevance or value to Baldwin’s case.
The judge reprimanded Morrissey and her team as “they have continued to fail to disclose critical evidence to the defendant.”
“The state’s willful withholding of this information was intentional and deliberate,” Sommer said. “If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.”
Testimony revealed withheld evidence in ‘Rust’ case
On July 12, Baldwin’s lawyers said the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office was in possession of live rounds they argued might be connected to the one that killed Hutchins but failed to list them as evidence in the “Rust” investigation file or disclose their existence to defense lawyers.
On July 11, testimony revealed Troy Teske, a friend of “Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s stepfather, had delivered Colt .45 live rounds to the sheriff’s office on March 6. Baldwin’s team claimed this was evidence that could have established a connection to Seth Kenney, the prop supplier for “Rust.”
Baldwin’s attorneys alleged the rounds were evidence that the bullet that killed Hutchins came from Kenney. Kenney has denied supplying live ammunition to the production and has not been charged in the case.
Baldwin’s team has blamed Gutierrez-Reed, who is serving 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter, and first assistant director Dave Halls for negligence that led to Hutchins’ death. Meanwhile, prosecutors argued Baldwin handled the gun irresponsibly, exhibited “bullyish behavior on set” and changed his story to cast blame on others.
Contributing: Andrew Hay, Reuters
We’re expecting widespread light snow Thursday in New Mexico. See the latest forecast at KOB.com/Weather.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The snow was falling and the roads were slick to start Thursday in parts of New Mexico and it’s likely that will continue throughout the day.
We’ll see on and off scattered snow showers, especially in parts of southern New Mexico. That will become more widespread with blowing snow possible.
A winter weather advisory is still in effect until Friday morning for 1-3 inches of snow expected and 5-6 inches of snow in higher-elevation areas. It encompasses most of southern New Mexico and stretches just above Interstate 40 near Tucumcari, heading toward the Texas state line.
High temperatures will be at least 10° below average for pretty much everyone.
Meteorologist Kira Miner shares all the details in her full forecast in the video above.
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