SUMMARY: Legendary designer Alexander Girard fused sleek modernism with playful folk art. At Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art, "A Designer's Universe" highlights Girard's breadth of creativity, from mapping a country to devising a language. That exhaustive approach is evident in his best-known projects, for which he designed every detail. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.
SUMMARY: While much of the U.S. economy is on the rebound, New Mexico remains in the dumps since the recession hit a decade ago. Part of the problem may be a statewide brain drain, educated young people taking their careers -- and expertise -- elsewhere. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports on New Mexico's mission to bring back its young, energetic entrepreneurs.
SUMMARY: As anxiety increases within the immigrant community over stepped-up enforcement along the U.S.-Mexican border, one small bi-national community in New Mexico is working hard to keep families connected through education and schooling. Special correspondent Simon Thompson reports from public media's Fronteras Desk and PBS station KRWG.
SIMON THOMPSON, Public Media: Daylight hasn't even broken, but 500 children who live in Palomas, Mexico, are up and on their way to school. Their commute is not typical.
They must first cross the international border into the U.S. They show their U.S. passports and birth certificates. Customs and Immigration officials inspect their school bags. Then they're bussed to school in Luna County, New Mexico.
Lizett Preciado is a senior at Deming High School in Luna County. A U.S. citizen, she's lived in Palomas with her parents for seven years.
LIZETT PRECIADO, Student, Deming High School: It was good to be able to go to school there. And, like, there's more opportunities to study and to have a better job in the future.
SIMON THOMPSON: Lizett and her family moved to Palomas from Colorado, after her mother, Rosa Marie, was deported for being in the United States illegally.
ROSA MARIA PRECIADO, Mother (through interpreter): I felt really bad, really badly, because I have four children who are citizens of the United States, and my husband is a resident. I didn't want to go back to live in Mexico. I know it is my country, but life in Mexico in really hard.
SIMON THOMPSON: Preciado and her husband, Ramon, makes their living in Palomas raising goats. Ramon still crosses occasionally back into the U.S. to work.
Preciado says having her children educated in the U.S. was important to her, and that's why they settled in Palomas.
ROSA MARIA PRECIADO (through interpreter): I came to Palomas because of a friend who said Palomas would be a good option to live with my children. It is easy to cross into the United States, and there is a bus to take them to school.
SIMON THOMPSON: Armando Chavez is the principal of Columbus Elementary in Luna County. He says the school district usually sees an influx of students when states enact strict immigration laws, as Arizona did in 2010.
ARMANDO CHAVEZ, Principal, Columbus Elementary: We are sometimes the holding spot for them, for them to fix the papers correctly. We are dealing with children that come from South Dakota, Missouri. It can be any state that they come, but we embrace our children that come to our door every day.
SUMMARY: It's been nearly two weeks since an EPA accident at a defunct Colorado mine fouled rivers in multiple states, and among the hardest hit residents are the Navajos. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports from New Mexico.
Editor’s note: We originally reported that the San Juan River flows into Arizona and then enters Lake Powell. In fact, it joins the Colorado River in Utah, then flows into Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona border. Also, in a map of the Navajo Nation, we incorrectly illustrated the northern border, which more closely follows the San Juan River than our depiction. We regret the errors.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): It’s been 12 days since an accident at a defunct Colorado gold mine fouled rivers in three states.
Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery has an update on the impact the spill has had on Native Americans and others in Northwest New Mexico.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY (NewsHour): The sunflowers in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico, are drooping.
LORENZO BATES, Speaker, Navajo Nation Council: When you look at them now, they’re all hanging over because they haven’t — they need water.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: On LoRenzo Bates’ farm, it’s not just sunflowers in trouble. The alfalfa, key for feeding his animals, is stunted.
LORENZO BATES: This is right now 12 days behind. This hay has to get me through the winter season.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: Bates, the speaker of the Navajo Nation, tallied his losses so far at $1,000 in just one week, no small amount in this poor region. It’s all because Bates and thousands of others here couldn’t pull water from the San Juan River, which abuts his land. Irrigation ditches were shut down after the mine accident earlier this month 100 miles north in Silverton, Colorado.
Efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up one mine resulted in a breach at another, the Gold King Mine, which has been inactive since 1923. A three million gallon toxic stew of heavy metals poured downstream, turning the Animas River a shocking yellow.
SUMMARY: This July marks the 70th anniversary of the first ever test of an atomic bomb in New Mexico. But a group called the Downwinders -- local residents whose homes were downwind of the blast site -- aren't celebrating the milestone. People here believe the radiation from the bomb has caused a spike in cancers in their communities. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): This month marked the 70th anniversary of the first test of a nuclear bomb. It was a milestone for science, and credited with leading to the end of World War II.
But one group isn’t celebrating. They call themselves the Downwinders, because they lived downwind of the blast site.
Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports from South Central New Mexico.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY (NewsHour): The solemn reading of names at a candlelight vigil. This one with traditional New Mexican luminaries, is in a baseball field in the village of Tularosa. These are victims of a different kind of loss.
GLORIA HERRERA, Tularosa Resident: There’s just — there’s too much cancer here.
WOMAN: There’s so many tears.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: Gloria Herrera knows about cancer, from her friends, her neighbors and her husband, Henry, who’s had three different kinds. The Herreras blame the disease on a day etched in Henry’s memory. He was 11 years old.
HENRY HERRERA, Tularosa Resident: Boom, that thing exploded. And I mean it was a big explosion. It wasn’t like these regular ones we had been hearing.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: In July 1945, scientists worked in secret on the world’s first atomic bomb in a part of New Mexico’s desert called Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of Death.
They hoisted a 19-kiloton device called the Gadget on top of a 100-foot tower. At 5:29 in the morning on July 16, a tremendous flash came first, and then a mushroom cloud stretched seven-miles high. It was the same size and power as the plutonium bomb that would be dropped 24 days later on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands.
July is the rainy season in New Mexico. Hours after the blast, the skies opened up. But no one told residents to evacuate, even as radioactive ash poured down on livestock, crops, water cisterns, and laundry hanging on lines.
SUMMARY: The Albuquerque Police Department has come under national scrutiny for shootings involving officers, including 28 fatal incidents in the last five years. In March, two policemen shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man, all captured on a body camera. Unlike other high-profile cases around the country, these officers were charged. Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports from New Mexico.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): From Ferguson, Missouri, to New York City, police killings where the officers were not charged have sparked some intense debate and protests across the country.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, which has one of the highest rates of shootings involving police in the country, it’s a different story.
Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery has that.
And a warning: Her report contains graphic footage.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY (NewsHour): Fourteen-year police veteran Jim Jury knows he and the 935 officers on Albuquerque’s force are getting national attention.
OFFICER JIM JURY, Albuquerque Police Department: It’s shaken the department up.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: The intense scrutiny stems in part from charges filed against two officers last month.
KARI BRANDENBURG, District Attorney, New Mexico: We did file an open — what we refer to as an open count of murder.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: District attorney Kari Brandenburg took a tough stand after two policemen shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man last March. She charged officer Dominique Perez and detective Keith Sandy with murdering 38-year-old James Boyd.
He was illegally camping here in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains overlooking the city of Albuquerque. The police were called. A four-hour standoff followed, and the scene was recorded by a camera worn by one of the officers.
Facing increased scrutiny over its use of force, Albuquerque police shot and killed a man who authorities said slashed a good Samaritan's throat late Thursday, police announced at a briefing.
Deputy Chief William Roseman told reporters that the knife-wielding man was attacking a woman when the good Samaritan stepped in to help late Thursday and was stabbed.
"Officers attempted to talk to the offender and tried to have him drop the knife," Roseman said. "As officers tried to deescalate the situation, the male offender began to advance on the officers."
Roseman said two officers shot and killed the man after he continued to move toward police.
The name of the suspect was not released. Officials also have not released the names of the officers who fired their weapons.
In addition, police did not say how many times the man was shot nor if lapel camera footage of the shooting was available.
Roseman said the good Samaritan is in critical condition, while the woman has been treated and released.
It is the third fatal shooting by the Albuquerque Police Department since the U.S. Justice Department released a scathing review of the agency's use of force and the 40th police shooting since 2010. The report also faulted Albuquerque police for officers' interaction with suspects who have mental illness and how the police SWAT team resolved conflicts.
The city has entered negotiations with the Justice Department over reforms and it could take months before the two sides outline an agreement.
In recent weeks, critics have stepped up the pressure on Albuquerque police by holding street protests and crowding City Council meetings to demand immediate reforms.
Earlier this month, angry demonstrators took over the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, chanting for the ouster of the Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Ede, shouting at Council members and causing so much disruption that the panel's president adjourned the meeting. Protesters tried to serve a "people's arrest warrant" on Chief Gorden Eden and then held a mock council meeting in the chambers.
Demonstrators were removed from the next meeting by police when some approached the podium and refused to speak to protest new Council rule changes on speech.
This week, councilors approved a measure that would require that future police chiefs hired by the city get confirmed by the Council. The measure now goes before city voters in a referendum.
Critics say they are planning a June protest march.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Next, the story of a massive spill of jet fuel at a military base. Officials have known about it for at least 15 years, but there’s still a debate about its size, where it’s going, and what to do about it.
Special correspondent Kathleen McCleery reports from New Mexico.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: The trouble started here at Kirtland Air Force Base more than six decades ago. The sprawling base, about the size of Washington, D.C., sits on the southeast border of Albuquerque, the state’s largest city.
It’s home to the Air Force’s Nuclear Weapons Center, as well as a special operations wing.
Colonel Jeff Lanning is commander of the mission support group at the base.
COL. JEFF LANNING, Kirtland Air Force Base: It was in this area we found fuel actually coming to the surface, and we knew we had some kind of a problem at that point.
KATHLEEN MCCLEERY: That problem was a leak dating to the 1950s, when railcars and trucks delivered fuel to pipelines, powering planes at the growing base.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The U.S. Justice Department today released a scathing report finding what it calls a pattern of unjustified force in the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department.
Jeffrey Brown has that story.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The report cites incidents dating back to 2010, 37 people shot by police, 23 of them fatally. The most recent occurred just last month and was caught on videotape: the fatal shooting of James Boyd, a 38-year-old homeless man with a history of mental illness.
That led to a violent street protest against alleged police brutality.
Gene Grant is host of “New Mexico in Focus” on New Mexico Public Television. He has been covering this story and joins us tonight from Albuquerque.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Fire managers in Colorado and New Mexico spent the day calling in major new manpower and hoping for help from nature. The developments underscored that fire season has set in with a vengeance in the Southwest.
Thick clouds of smoke drifted across the Northern Colorado sky, as flames consumed more and more of the forest below. The High Park fire is believed to have been sparked early Saturday by a lightning strike 15 miles west of Fort Collins. Since then, the big blaze has covered more than 60 square miles, with nothing to slow it down.
