|
 Holding a ribbon of yellow police tape and placards including "APD
is guilty" - referring to the Albuquerque Police Department - the
demonstrators chanted slogans in Mayor Richard Berry's office suite
until officers arrived.
A police statement said David Correia, an assistant professor in the
department of American Studies at the University of New Mexico, was
"the apparent leader of the group."
He was arrested and charged with felony battery on a police officer
"because he pushed a member of the mayor’s security detail during
the incident," the statement said.
 The statement said that "more than a dozen" people were arrested,
and 13 were charged with criminal trespass, unlawful assembly and
interfering with a public official or staff.
In a list of demands circulated on social media, the protesters
called for the removal of police chief Gorden Eden and others, and
said that under Berry's administration New Mexico's largest city had
become a "national disgrace."
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In April, the U.S. Justice Department cited the Albuquerque Police
Department for engaging in what federal civil rights investigators
said was a pattern of excessive force, some of it deadly, in
violation of the U.S. Constitution.
That 18-month inquiry by the Justice Department followed public
complaints over a string of police-involved shootings in recent
years, many fatal, and what critics have called heavy-handed use of
stun guns by Albuquerque officers.
(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Will Dunham)
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