Chris Ramirez
August 28, 2018 10:48 PM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – It’s difficult to hear about another child in New Mexico abused, hurt or killed. These are the stories that feel like a punch to the gut. Each time it happens we can’t but ask—can New Mexico do a better job protecting our children?
There are ideas in the form of legislative bills to curb crimes against children, but few actually make it into law. The pattern in the last four years shows legislation that would have enhanced sentences for child abusers and killers stall in the New Mexico Senate.
Nicole Chavez-Lucero’s Story
Protecting New Mexico’s children: The fight in Santa Fe meets roadblocks
In an instant in June 2015, Nicole Chavez-Lucero was thrust into a growing circle of parents in New Mexico who have a lost a child to violence. Her son, Jaydon Chavez Silver was 18 and at a house party when a group of young men fired shots into the house from the back of a car. While Jaydon wasn’t the intended target, he took a bullet and died moments later. Since Jaydon’s 2015 murder, Nicole has turned into a fierce advocate for laws that better protect children and hold child killers and abusers more accountable.
“I think I always wanted something positive to come from it,” Nicole Chavez-Lucero told KOB, while sitting next to Jaydon’s headstone. “I thought there had to be something, some reason- because if I could not let my son’s legacy live on for something good, then it was pointless for me.”
Pushing for bills
Chavez-Lucero partnered with a handful of legislators and Children Youth and Families Department Cabinet Secretary Monique Jacobson to push for laws they believed would decrease crimes against children.
Among them, a bill that would have enhanced penalties for child abusers, a bill that would crack down on child pornographers, a bill that would hold offenders in positions of power accountable for sexually penetrating a child. All those bills died in Senate committees or Senate leaders blocked the bills from ever getting a debate on the Senate Floor.
The same can be said about the expansion of Baby Briana’s Law. If the expansion passed, it would have provided a mandatory life sentence for anyone who intentionally abused a child of any age to the point of death. Currently in New Mexico, that sentence is only available if the victim is under 11 years old.
“People against this bill got up and said ‘it just doesn’t happen. We don’t need a law like this because it doesn’t happen,’” Jacobson said. “I left that hearing, checked my email and got the first note about Jeremiah Valencia and I thought, ‘oh my gosh…it just happened.’”
Jeremiah Valencia was 13 when authorities discovered his body in Santa Fe County. Law Enforcement believed he was sexually assaulted, burned, and kept in a dog cage before his murder. His mother, Tracy Ann Peña, 35, her boyfriend, Thomas Wayne Ferguson, 42, and Ferguson’s 19-year-old son, Jordan Nuñez, all faced charges in connection with Valencia’s death. Thomas Wayne Ferguson committed suicide while in pre-trial detention at the Santa Fe County Detention Center.
Community and Political Blame on CYFD
“When bad things happen to our children, the community rises up in anger, as they should,” Jacobson said. “They demand more from us as an agency, as they should, but they also need to demand more from the N.M. Legislature in terms of holding those who hurt our kids accountable.”
Through the years, lawmakers have put pressure on CYFD to not just push bills that penalize but to also think of ways to prevent child abuse and child murders. Many have blamed CYFD for letting children fall through the cracks.
For example, concerned teachers and other adults asked CYFD 25 times to look into the welfare of a 7-year-old girl in Albuquerque. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas would later accuse that girl’s parents of prostituting her. Jacobson acknowledged her agency dropped the ball in that case but she believes in the big picture, she has done what lawmakers and the community have asked her to do.
“We have increased the number of field workers by 30 percent. We have 100 more field workers out responding to cases than we did 3.5 years ago. We have changed our approach to training. We have decreased our vacancy rate from 24 percent to 12 percent. We have increased the budget of CYFD by $79 million in the last three years, the majority of which is going toward prevention programming.”
The Continued Fight
Nicole Chavez-Lucero can’t help but wonder—if New Mexico sent a stronger message about not tolerating crimes against children, would that group who fired shots in that house in 2015 have thought twice? Without a way of answering that question, Chavez-Lucero plans on showing up at the Roundhouse next year, despite the rejections she’s faced in past years from lawmakers.
“It’s extremely frustrating. It’s like a slap in the face,” Chavez-Lucero said. “When you get to the Legislature and see all the strings you have to play and all of the political backdoor action happening, it’s ridiculous.”
For all the children who have been abused, neglected or killed in our state, our state leaders owe them justice. Perhaps justice may come in the form of New Mexico’s lawmakers finding compromise and solutions to prevent crimes against children and hold those who do harm our kids more accountable.
“Until my heart stops beating, I will always fight in Jaydon’s name and fight to make change because the fewer people who are standing here in my shoes having to look at their child on a headstone, I think that is all worth it.”
Click here to see all the bills CYFD has proposed since 2015 that have failed to become law
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