A New Mexico town of less than 5,000 people will be the latest municipality to take a chance on Joseph Harris Jr., a troubled cop on his fourth law enforcement job in two years.
The Bosque Farms Police Department was proud to announce on its Facebook page that it had hired Harris Jr. but not mentioning his past.
The police department then removed the photo and post after KRQE reported on the controversial hire. Police also told the news station it would be releasing more details soon about its decision to hire Harris Jr. but has yet to do so.
A New Mexico man has joined his fourth law enforcement agency in less than two years. This comes after he was convicted of a misdemeanor crime, and he still faces a lawsuit.
Joseph Harris Jr. was accused of assaulting a Rio Rancho businessman last July. He was off duty at the time, but worked for New Mexico State Police.
After we reached out to Bosque Farms for comment on Harris’ hiring today, they took his photo off Facebook.
A spokesperson with Bosque Farms told us today that Chief Paul Linson would be providing us more details on the controversial hire. So far, we have yet to hear from him.
Harris Jr.’s was a Sandoval County sheriff’s deputy when he crashed his patrol car into another car while pursuing a motorcycle at a high rate of speed, injuring the car’s occupants in January 2018, prompting his resignation. There is still a pending lawsuit against him for that crash.
He was quickly hired by New Mexico State Police but then was charged with battery after violently shoving court papers into a man’s chest and ended up pleading to a disorderly conduct charge. He claimed to be the victim but witnesses said he was the aggressor.
The incident led to his forced resignation from the state police agency in October 2018. He was then hired by the village of Cuba, New Mexico; population 750.
At this time, it is not clear why he left Cuba for Bosque Farms but his name is not yet listed the “police team” page on the Bosque Farms Police Department’s website.
However, while the official Facebook page for the Village of Bosque Farms has made no mention of Harris Jr.’s hiring, it has displayed a very pro-police profile photo since January 2015 so we’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
