The Reporter's Notebook from The Las Cruces Sun-News

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about recent conversations about homelessness and crime in Las Cruces. Business leaders recently organized a forum to address a gap they say the city council created by ignoring the issue of homelessness and property crime citywide.

On June 2, the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, the Las Cruces Association of Realtors and the Las Cruces Home Builders Association hosted a forum for business owners to discuss concerns about theft, vandalism, substance abuse and homelessness in Las Cruces. The forum was held at the Home Builders Association event hall.

On Monday, June 6th, many showed up to speak during the public comment portion of the Las Cruces City Council meeting to address the same issues.

This week, we talk to Las Cruces Sun-News reporters Justin Garcia and Michael McDevitt — and photojournalist Meg Potter. Michael covers city and county government for the paper; Justin writes about public safety, cops and courts. We’ll talk about the issues expressed by the business community, the stats behind crime, locally — based on a recent Sun-News analysis — and what stories we’ll be following in the coming weeks.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about education.

We’ll talk to Miranda Cyr, who has covered education for the Sun-News for the past couple years. Miranda is a Report for America fellow; Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. An initiative of the nonprofit media organization, The GroundTruth Project, it is structured to harness the skills and idealism of an emerging group of journalists plus the creative spirit of local news organizations.

Last week was Miranda’s final week with us. She’ll be leaving Las Cruces to join the staff of the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon — where she’ll also cover education. We wanted to talk to her about some of the biggest stories she’s covered during her time here, some of the throughlines in her reporting, and what we should be looking for as we move forward.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about the shooting of 75-year-old Amelia Baca by an officer from the Las Cruces Police Department. Family members say she suffered from signs of dementia — which was undiagnosed. 

When police arrived, they say they found the elderly woman holding a large kitchen knife in each hand. Videos obtained by the Sun-News show that Baca was shot as she took a step toward the responding officer.

Our efforts in reporting this story have been rife with transparency issues, stemming from the City of Las Cruces and the Las Cruces Police Department. Days passed before the department acknowledged the fatal shooting. Eventually, they named the victim. And our subsequent records requests shined a little more light on what happened that Saturday before Easter.

There are a lot of issues to dissect in this — both in our reporting and in the facts of the case. Why did Amelia Baca have to die? Why weren’t less-lethal measures used? Unfortunately, we don’t have the answers to THOSE questions. Someday, we might. The incident is still under investigation by the Doña Ana County Officer-Involved Task Force.

We’ll talk to Justin Garcia, who covers public safety for the Sun-News, about this story — and the challenges of covering it.

In this week’s episode of The Reporter's Notebook, we’re talking about interesting figures in Las Cruces. Anita Rockett, for instance, is 69 years old. Nearly 50 years ago, she almost lost a leg in a boating accident. Since then, she has run countless marathons, and in June, she hopes to complete her first Ironman Half Triathalon.

We’ll talk to Sun-News reporter Leah Romero, who has reported these stories for the newspaper. Florence Hamilton, who just turned 100 years old, is a great storyteller. She uses her talent to share Black history. Newly-established Las Crucen Lyn Barrett explores her personal battle with Dissociative Identity Disorder in her new book, "Crazy: Reclaiming Life from the Shadow of Traumatic Memory.”

Barrett, 74, arrived in Las Cruces in early March from her longtime home in Upstate New York — a move made for closer proximity to children, grandchildren and warm weather. Jenny Matsler of Las Cruces has collected dozens of medals during her years involved with Special Olympics New Mexico. This summer, she will get her first opportunity to compete during the national games in Orlando on the state’s bocce team. David Hill, a Las Crucen, recently summited Mount Kilimanjaro on his second attempt, three years after suffering a debilitating injury. They all have interesting stories to share.

Thanks for listening this week, and remember you can subscribe to The Reporter's Notebook from the Las Cruces Sun-News on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, TuneIn, Stitcher — and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about the local economy as a number of interesting factors collide. On one hand, the nation’s economy is shrinking as inflation and other factors drive up gas prices — creating a pinch at the pump and at the supermarket. Las Cruces certainly isn’t immune to these large-scale factors — but, according to one economist we spoke to, we may be a little better insulated. 

We’ll talk to Sun-News reporter Algernon D’Ammassa, who has followed several facets of this story quite closely. We’ll talk about the state’s recent legalization of the sale of recreational cannabis, the nationwide nursing shortage and other factors.

And, finally, we’ll talk to Meg Potter — the newest addition to our newsroom. Meg is a photojournalist — or, a visual journalist — who just started last week. We’ll talk about her experience, her motivation, and settling into life in a new city in the desert southwest.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about our newspaper’s new reporting standards surrounding cops, courts and crime — public safety reporting, as we’re calling it now. Why, for example, are you seeing fewer mugshots of alleged criminals in news stories? Why are we adding editors notes about sexual assault resources, or suicide prevention resources or domestic violence support resources at the top of our stories, now?

Also: Some stories are free. Some count against the number of stories you can see for free without a subscription. And some are “PREMIUM,” which means you can’t read them without being a subscriber. Why is that? And how do we make those decisions in the newsroom?

Things are changing in the way we’re bringing you the news. But things are also changing in the way that our government agencies are providing us with information. I’m thinking, most notably, about the police shooting of 75-year-old Amelia Baca — an elderly woman, suffering from dementia, who was shot and killed by the Las Cruces Police Department on Saturday, April 16.

We're joined by Sun-News reporter Justin Garcia, who covers breaking news and public safety for the newspaper, as well as Sun-News News Director Lucas Peerman.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about the recent wildfires that have plagued the residents in and around Ruidoso, in the Lincoln National Forest. The McBride Fire, which ignited on a windy Tuesday afternoon near Ruidoso's middle school, has since destroyed more than 200 homes — most notably in Gavilan Canyon — and claimed the lives of two people. And, as of Friday morning, the fire remained 0% contained — despite favorable weather conditions Thursday. That had improved to 56% by Sunday morning.

We're joined by Las Cruces Sun-News reporter Justin Garcia, who covers breaking news and public safety for the newspaper, as well as Alexander Meditz, a Ruidoso resident who was forced to evacuate and later returned to the fire-zone to help other residents.

Alexander's home was spared. Some of his neighbors weren't nearly as fortunate.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking all about cannabis. On Friday, April 1st, sales of recreational — or adult-use — cannabis became legal in New Mexico. And Las Cruces was the first city in the state to conduct a legal sale. We’ll get into how that happened…

Doña Ana County, which borders Texas, also enjoyed the benefit of its share of cannabis tourism — border dispensaries in the south county were flooded with Texans, happy that legal weed was now within their reach. 

In Las Cruces, it seemed that well-established medical dispensaries that had expanded to recreational sales drew the largest crowds; mom-and-pop upstarts drew a steady stream of customers as well, but usually not the long lines seen elsewhere.

This week, we’re joined by Sun-News reporter Miranda Cyr — who volunteered to cover the midnight opening at R. Greenleaf, a dispensary on Mall Drive in Las Cruces. It was the first to announce that they’d be opening at midnight Friday, and sales would begin at 12:01. The atmosphere, as Miranda describes it, was like a movie premiere or a concert.

Later, we’ll be joined by Sun-News reporters Michael McDevitt and Algernon D’Ammassa, both of whom covered the first day of cannabis sales in Doña Ana County, and talk about what they observed.

In this week’s episode, we’re talking collaborative, solutions-based journalism. We’ll be joined by Diana Alba Soular — a former reporter for the Sun-News — and my former co-worker — who is now Project Manager of the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative, and Reyes Mata III, a reporter for the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative and a freelance reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News. For the past year or so, he has written the Border Report, which you’ll often find in Sunday’s edition of the newspaper and online at www.lcsun-news.com.

At the Sun-News, we’ve been involved with the Southern New Mexico Journalism Collaborative from the ground up; in 2021, loyal readers may recall Walt Rubel’s coverage of a very unusual Legislative session — due, in large part, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And that brings us to the Collaborative’s next steps — a deep dive into solutions-based journalism, looking at how COVID-19 has impacted southern New Mexicans and the steps forward — toward recovery, rebuilding and resilience. Reyes will be tasked with covering that effort for news outlets across Southern New Mexico through his new role at the Collaborative.

But what is solutions journalism? And what will this mean for readers of the Sun-News? We try to explain that.

In this week's episode, we’re joined by Mónica Ortiz Uribe, the Regional Diversity Reporter for the El Paso Times. Mónica recently shared the fantastic story of Shahid Mustafa, who grew up in Chicago’s southside — and now is carrying on a little-known legacy of Black farmers in southern New Mexico.

Shahid moved to Las Cruces to manage Mountain View Market Co+Op, which closed its doors in December of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Today, he works as a full-time independent farmer, leasing a one-acre plot in La Union. He has also farmed in Socorro, Texas, and in Las Cruces. The path that brought him here is full of twists and turn, and we’re so happy to be joined by Shahid this week, as well, to share his story — what drew him to Southern New Mexico ... and what kept him here.

We’ll talk to Mónica about how she approached this story and what she wanted to capture, and dig into the long, long legacy of Black farmers sowing the land in southern Doña Ana County.