September 26 – Several violent incidents have occurred in New Mexico’s capital this summer, leaving some people concerned and wondering if anything has changed.
Eli Bransford, an outspoken local who makes YouTube videos and is one of the creators of a documentary, What’s Happening to Santa Fe?, speaks from a bench on the Plaza this week. – Focus on Crime, discussed how he feels there are problems in the city that need to be addressed.
“I just care about my city,” Bransford said. “I want to start a city discussion.”
“I don’t want people to feel let down by public comments that our mayor and some other officials have said this is just your perception: go back to work, everything is fine,” Bransford said. “…You’re not crazy. Your eyes tell you the truth.”
City spokeswoman Regina Ruiz said in response that she believed Bransford misinterpreted a statement Mayor Alan Webber gave to a TV news organization in August. Bransford highlights the quote in question in his documentary.
Much has been written about the problems with crime statistics, the difficulty of isolating hard and fast trends. Despite some high-profile incidents – including a recent police shooting near the Plaza that led to the cancellation of Fiesta de Santa Fe festivities, the carjacking and murder of an elderly man in a busy shopping district, and two shootings in commercial areas, this year of summer, one fatality – Santa Fe has seen just two homicides this year, compared to last year’s five.
But Bransford, a self-described Christian conservative who works at his family’s auto repair shop Alex Safety Lane, was talking about how people he knows feel, people he interviewed for What’s Happening to Santa Fe? — which will be shown at the Jean Cocteau Cinema and premieres Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Although the screening is free, Bransford said tickets had already been discussed for the approximately 80 seats available.
He started filming several years ago “as a kind of hobby and passion,” he said, “and I kind of evolved as I needed to.”
The crime-focused project developed, he said, because he and “pretty much everyone who has been in Santa Fe for more than five minutes have noticed a real increase in crime and a lot of negative things.”
Although crime rates fluctuate from month to month and year to year, data over a five-year period — from before the emergence of COVID-19 through the end of July — shows significant increases in many types of crimes in Santa Fe, reaching rates that have continued to exist. from this month. Still, the Santa Fe Police Department has seen a slight decrease in crime in the first seven months of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023 — a decrease of fewer than 100 incidents. According to the city’s data, the first seven months of 2024 saw a notable decline in homicides, arson and burglaries, and some increase in robberies, thefts and assaults.
“Public safety will always be my top priority as mayor,” Webber said in a statement Thursday. “Over the past month, I have spoken numerous times with our police chief, the district attorney, the FBI agent in charge of our region, and state legislators to develop action plans that will keep people in Santa Fe safe. This includes ways residents can contribute to the overall safety of the community.”
“It’s a thick feeling in our community, and like I said, a lot of it is causing fear in people, and they’re not sure if they want to talk about it,” Bransford said. “Again: Is it perception or is it reality?”
The screening of the locally made documentary follows a summer in which outraged residents have expressed their frustrations about crime and homelessness in councilor forums. It also comes as crime is on the minds of many right now, in New Mexico and elsewhere, with public safety a major political talking point ahead of November’s presidential election.
In a clip from the documentary, a line unfolds behind a microphone as locals speak out about crime, concern evident on every face. In another scene, two hooded men brandishing golf clubs appear on a security camera in a parking lot, with one waving wildly at the roof of a car.
A quote from Webber that Bransford highlighted followed the fatal shooting of an 83-year-old man in the Best Buy parking lot in August: “Data shows crime in Santa Fe is down in most categories compared to last year, and that is that’s a good thing. But the feeling, the emotion, the perception is that we have more crime, so we have to go out and work with people,” Webber said, according to the news channel KOB-TV.
You may have seen a photo of Bransford in The New Mexican in the past.
In the photo, he is wearing a Cross of Martyrs shirt that reads “I am Jay Baker,” referring to the anonymous Facebook agitator who regularly denounces Mayor Alan Webber and his administration.
Bransford has emphasized several times that he is not Jay Baker. But he did broach the subject in a recent interview with The New Mexican.
“You know Jay Baker. I’m often mistaken for him. I helped him sell shirts a while ago,” he said Wednesday. “I’m not Jay Baker.”
Asked about the identity of Jay Baker, he replied, “I don’t know,” adding that Baker represents the dissatisfaction felt by some members of the community.
Bransford’s family has lived in Santa Fe for generations. A biography of Bransford on a website for the documentary that elaborates on his philosophy states that he “strongly believes that the lack of involvement of the religious and conservative communities in politics, culture and pop culture for decades has contributed to the collapse of the world. common morality and social structure that every society needs to function smoothly.”
Bransford is also a member of Union Protectiva de Santa Fe, a Spanish-speaking fraternal organization that sued the city and Webber in 2021, arguing that a proclamation he issued in June 2020 invited the destruction of the Plaza obelisk in October. That process is still ongoing. As a YouTuber, he has also focused on what he has characterized as attacks on the city’s history and culture by “radicals and activists.”
His YouTube video What’s Happening to Santa Fe Documentary – Homelessness has been viewed by 11,000 people.
“I think the data indicates that we are doing constructive things to raise awareness of crime and arrest people who are engaging in criminal activity,” Webber said in an interview with The New Mexican earlier this month.
“I think we can do more, and there’s a list of things that can do that [police Chief Paul] Joye and I have talked about them and they are already being done and can be described more broadly to the public, showing that we don’t have to simply accept criminal behavior,” he continued.
The city is not alone in its struggle. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has made public safety and crime fighting a top priority, and lawmakers have been examining crime data — especially in Albuquerque, the state’s largest city and a city that has long struggled with a high crime rate.
Data from the past five years illustrates some of Santa Fe’s problem areas. The total number of offenses counted through July 31 was 3,656, compared to 2,828 in the same period in 2019, while motor vehicle theft more than doubled in five years, from 144 in the first seven months of 2019 to 361 this year – all earlier this month.
Police generally blame increases in drug use and homelessness, as well as repeat offenders, for violence, vandalism, thefts and other problems that continue to plague residents and businesses in the city.
Bransford made the documentary with JD Marmion, another Santa Fe resident who has appeared as an actor in numerous films, according to IMDb, an online database of film information.
As a resident of the South Side, Bransford talked about how people told him there are two versions of the city – “two Santa Fes,” as he put it.
“I think what the mayor says about the community is actually the opposite and true of him,” Bransford said. “I think he lives in a safe environment behind a fence, and I think he’s outside the experience of the rest of us.”
