CHAVES COUNTY, N.M. – The Chaves County Sheriff’s Office sent two directives in May regarding who should respond to 911 calls within Roswell city limits, and on the highways within the county.

Those directives were sent to dispatchers. But Chaves County Undersheriff Charles Yslas says an ex-employee with the sheriff’s department tried to paint a different narrative.

“Taking a directive and marking it up, changing it, saying that it went to this person or that person. No,” said Yslas.

One of the directives states deputies will no longer respond to calls within city limits unless it’s to help officers in any major or catastrophic event.

The second directive says most calls that fall dealing with highways are to be sent to New Mexico State Police.

The anonymous ex-employee went to Facebook claiming the directives were sent to the Roswell Police Department and State Police. 

“The reality is they were sent to dispatch, to clarify to dispatch what calls should be sent to which agency. Then, which calls we will be responding to which calls, you know, to forward to state police, and which calls to send over to our PD,” Yslas said.

Yslas says the directives were sent to dispatchers so they could know who to send where and to have better response times. He says it was nothing personal or vindictive.

“This isn’t about punishment. This isn’t about who’s the, you know, who’s the higher mightier, more important. This isn’t about hurt feelings or anything like that. This is business, this is about putting the citizens first and utilizing all our resources that we have,” said Yslas.

He says at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you live in or out of the city, if you call they’re going to respond.