Councilors want independent review of safety chief's actions

July 15, 2011

albuquerque city councilors are demanding more answers about public safety director darren white's actions -- after his wife got into an accident and he drove her to the hospital. heather mills talked to one city councilor today who says people keep asking them what's happening.... she's live in the newsroom with our big story. that's right, in fact city council is holding a special meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss the incident involving darren white's wife. four councilors sent a letter to the mayor today.. asking that an independent organization review the incident in order to remove any potential bias. councilors ken sanchez.. debbie o'malley.. isaac benton and rey garduno signed the letter. councilor o'malley today says the only way to get a credible understanding of what happened is to have someone "not" contracted by the city to conduct the investigation. the independent review office of the police oversight commission is handling the investigation right now. those results are expected in about two weeks. white came under fire for picking his wife up from the accident scene and driving her to the hospital. she crashed her porsche into a curb. he says she had a seizure. "we've been receiving emails and concerns about the big issue, about the oversight, about the concerns about that. so this issue just keeps getting bigger and bigger with more and more legs." o'malley also says there's some concern among councilors as to why white is not on administrative leave right now. the city tells me none of the responding officers are on administrative leave...that the i-r-o is looking into the incident and all the people who were involved. earlier this afternoon --- the albuquerque area fire fighters union voted "no confidence" on darren white. the albuquerque police officers union and the ate police officers union previously voted "no confidence" in him -- unrelated to this incident.