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City asks legislators to raise penalties on reckless driving, create statewide task force to investigate police shootings
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Paula Mills lost her daughter in a street racing crash in October 2023.
Her daughter, Jenna Hamilton, 42, was killed when Andy Doreste-Saumell allegedly raced on Louisiana with another driver and hit a sedan Hamilton was driving, killing her and the driver he was racing, according to a previous Journal story. Doreste-Saumell鈥檚 trial is slated to start in March, court records show.
鈥淚t should never have happened,鈥� Mills told the Journal.
Mills attended Tuesday afternoon鈥檚 city of Albuquerque news conference at Eubank and La Entrada, an area notorious for street racing.
At the press event, the city requested that the Legislature consider increasing penalties for reckless driving that causes great bodily harm or death, being a felon with a firearm and creating a statewide task force to investigate police shootings.
These are a few items listed in the city鈥檚 2025 Metro Crime Initiative, a list of public safety requests the city hopes legislators consider during the session.
The biggest concern on Tuesday was reckless driving and street racing, which has gone on for years. But now, 鈥渕ore lives are being lost, people are going faster,鈥� Mayor Tim Keller said.
The APD traffic team is doing its best to combat the racing, 鈥渂ut we鈥檙e going to be asking for a little bit of help from the state Legislature,鈥� APD Lt. Lawrence Monte said.
Police Chief Harold Medina said the city is asking for the penalty for reckless driving that causes great bodily harm or death, a third-degree felony, to be 鈥渕ore in line鈥� with crimes like vehicular homicide.
鈥淔or years, we have put significant focus on street racing operations, traffic enforcement, and DWI checkpoints, but that alone won鈥檛 fix the problem,鈥� Medina said in a statement. 鈥淏y seeking change on a state level to improve our laws around reckless driving, we can have a real impact on driver behavior and, in turn, make traveling throughout our community safer.鈥�
Along with increasing penalties, Mills said she also wants officers to go to schools and talk to students pursuing their driver鈥檚 licenses 鈥渁nd show them that police officers are there to keep them safe.鈥�
鈥淭hey are not there to make their lives miserable,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey care about them. They care about their safety.鈥�
Aside from reckless driving, the city is asking for additional penalties for being a felon in possession of a firearm, a third-degree felony.
During past news conferences on police shootings, Medina said he told the media many times he would rather have cases of a felon in possession of a firearm prosecuted federally 鈥渂ecause their laws have teeth,鈥� as opposed to state laws.
鈥淪ome people say that harsher penalties don鈥檛 prevent crime,鈥� said Rep. Joy Garratt, D-Albuquerque, who was at the press conference. 鈥淭hey do demonstrate, however, that destructive actions have serious consequences, and word gets around.鈥�
The city is also asking the Legislature to create a statewide multi-agency task force to investigate police shootings.
What is needed is an agency 鈥渢hat investigates all officer-involved shootings,鈥� Medina said, one that is independent from every police chief, one that is independent from every county sheriff and one in which the public can have trust.
