BOSQUE FARMS—After the abrupt termination of former Bosque Farms Police Chief Paul Linson in late June, a baker’s dozen of applicants submitted their resumes to the village of Bosque Farms.
The field was narrowed to five candidates on Friday, Aug. 21, after a review of the applications by Bosque Farms Mayor Russ Walkup, Peralta Mayor Bryan Olguin, Village Clerk/Administrator Gayle Jones and Peralta Town Clerk Kori Taylor.
Olguin and Taylor were part of the initial culling of applicants because Peralta contracts with the village for law enforcement services.
Of the five applicants selected for interviews, three are currently members of the Bosque Farms Police Department — Interim Chief Andrew Owen, Lt. Patrick Ficke and Detective Sgt. Rashai Sterba.
Also in the pool are Timothy M. Harrington, who retired from the Albuquerque Police Department in 2012 as a detective; and Alberto H. Davalos Jr., an officer with the Isleta Police Department since March and a former BFPD detective.
Davalos, of Albuquerque, left Bosque Farms in February of this year to make the move to Isleta PD. He’d been with BFPD since July 2018.
He was the warden/detention administrator at Hidalgo County Detention Center from September 2017 to February 2018, a lieutenant with the Anthony Police Department from April to September 2017, and a deputy with the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Department from May 2015 to May 2016.
From 1995 to 1999, Davalos, then a sergeant, served as the interim chief of police for the Santa Clara Police Department. He was also a K-9 handler and deputy with the Luna County Sheriff’s Department from 1999 to 2005, spent a year as a patrolman for the Silver City Police Department and was a sheriff’s deputy in Hidalgo and Grant counties.
Ficke, of Albuquerque, has been with BFPD since 2018. Since 2016, Ficke has worked part time as a licensed mental health counselor/human resource manager at Healthy Families of Albuquerque.
He worked part time at Family Choices Counseling Center from 2017 to 2018, was a supervisor/investigator for the state Department of Health’s incident management bureau from 2016 to 2018, and held positions with the Department of Workforce Solutions from 2013 to 2016.
Ficke worked for the Albuquerque Police Department from 2003 to 2013 in various positions, including crisis negotiation supervisor, field training officer and supervision of crisis intervention, field training, emergency response and undercover officers.
From 2012 to 2014, Harrington, of Albuquerque, worked for Chickasaw Nation Industries/Vistronix in Albuquerque on the Indian Health Services national help desk. He was an IT analyst for the University of New Mexico Medical Group from 2014 to 2017, before moving up to IT applications manager for the organization from 2017 to 2019.
Harrington was with Albuquerque Police Department from 1993 through 2012, where he started as an officer investigating violent and property crimes, and holding positions on the Crisis Intervention Team and Emergency Response Team.
As a detective, he moved to the APD technical services department in 2000, where he investigated felony violent and property crimes, among other duties.
Owen’s entire law enforcement career has been with Bosque Farms PD, starting in 2006. A resident of the village, he started as an officer, then was promoted to sergeant for six years and lieutenant for three. He was named interim chief in June of this year.
According to his resume, during his time with the department, Owen was part of a leadership team that reviewed services and developed goals and strategies to support the department’s mission, as well as negotiated and managed contracts and grants.
Prior to joining the department, Owen was a military police officer with the United States Marine Corps. He ended his 10-plus years with the Corps as a platoon commander, in charge of more than 50 Marines.
Sterba, of Albuquerque, came to the department in September 2019. According to her resume, in that position she supervises the investigations of all complaints and does the follow-up for internal investigations as necessary.
Sterba is responsible for the BFPD evidence unit, training and supervising the evidence technician, scheduling lab runs, coordinating destruction and release of evidence with the district attorney’s office and ensuring proper evidence handling by officers.
Prior to that, she was a major crime scene detective with the Albuquerque Police Department for 10 years. In that position she preserved, collected, documented and analyzed physical evidence at major crime scenes, including homicides, suspicious deaths and officer-involved shootings.
After the five candidates are interviewed by a committee, Mayor Walkup will make a recommendation to the Bosque Farms council.
The other applicants were:
• Harry C. Betz, of Rio Rancho a semi-retired adjunct instructor at the State Law Enforcement Academy.
• David T. Bibb III, of Albuquerque, former police chief for the city of Las Vegas, N.M.
• Alfredo Ferrer, of Miramar, Fla., a retired major from the Miami-Dade Police Department.
• Philip Holmes, of Albuquerque, an investigator/instructor for the 13th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Belen.
• Marcel Jojola, of Holly Springs, Miss., a retired police chief from Bear Valley, Calif.
• Felix Nunez, of Albuquerque, the police chief for the village of Jemez Springs.
• Jesus F. Orozco, of Los Lunas, a retired public safety director for the Pueblo of Laguna.
• Victor J. Rodriguez, of Rio Rancho, a tobacco inspector for the Federal Drug Administration and former police chief for the city of Belen.
Julia M. Dendinger began working at the VCNB in 2006. She covers Valencia County government, Belen Consolidated Schools and the village of Bosque Farms. She is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists Rio Grande chapter’s board of directors.
