Santa Fe cop accused of harassing women

SANTA FE (KRQE) - During nearly a dozen years with the Santa Fe Police Department, Sgt. Michael Eiskant has racked up a stack of citizen complaints.

Allegations include bullying, volatility and abuse of authority. One man even claimed Eiskant pulled a gun on him while the officer was off duty and said, “I can’t wait to get you when I’m on duty,” according to the complaint.

And while it’s not uncommon for citizens to complain about even the best officers, a close examination of both the complaints provided to News 13 by the city of Santa Fe and interviews with citizens who’ve had run-ins with Eiskant reveals a pattern of an officer who allegedly uses his police powers to harass women.

“He’s very dangerous,” said “Gail,” a woman who asked not to be identified. “He’s a predator. He preys on weaker, or what he believes at first are weak, women.”

Gail had two lunch dates with Eiskant in 2002 before she decided to break it off. But it wasn’t that easy.

“At one point in time, he was found walking through my sister’s backyard, for whatever reason, looking for me,” Gail said.

Even after she met and married the man who is now her husband, Eiskant allegedly refused to leave her alone.

“He would show up at places, and he would make a comment like, ‘I like your new house,’ and ‘It’s a nice neighborhood,’ and I’m thinking, how does this person even know where I moved, where I live?’ ” she said.

Then there’s the evening in 2006 when Eiskant showed up at their front door to investigate a 911 hang-up call, she said. The officer acted strangely and tried to provoke her husband into a fight, said Gail and her husband.

“He kept getting really close to me,” Gail’s husband told KRQE News 13. “I could even smell his breath. (He was) getting right in my face, trying to pick a fight with me. He was hoping I would swing, I would hit him.

“And when I was leaving, he turned to me and said, ‘You tell your wife I said hello.’ ”

The couple filed a formal complaint with the Santa Fe Police Department, but Eiskant remains on regular patrol as head of the agency’s traffic unit.

Another woman who spoke to News 13 said she was so scared of Eiskant after he harassed her that she wouldn’t even file a complaint.

But a 911 dispatcher who said she broke up with Eiskant in 2005, did file a complaint with the police department.

She said he called her so often she quit answering her phone and later told him her cell phone was broken. Eiskant then called a cell phone company employee, told her he had a subpoena for the woman and asked the employee to call her and check to see if her phone worked, according to the woman’s complaint.

“He uses his resources with his law enforcement authority to take advantage of the information that he can get on these people so he can stalk them and harass them,” Gail said.

In another case, a Santa Fe woman claimed that Eiskant had pulled her over five times in two years and demanded sex almost every time, according to a New Mexico State Police report. After their last encounter in 2004, the woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at a Cerrillos Road hotel, the report states.

Eiskant denied the assault but admitted to becoming aroused with the woman and to some inappropriate behavior.

The city suspended Eiskant for five weeks in 2005, and the Law Enforcement Academy Board suspended him for 30 days in 2007.

Now comes the latest allegation against Eiskant.

A Santa Fe woman filed a complaint in August accusing him of harassment in a southwest Santa Fe parking lot. Sources told KRQE News 13 Eiskant used the restricted National Crime Information Center database to find out details about the woman’s life.

The breach only came to light when the woman’s husband, a State Police officer, checked the database.

Eiskant is now under investigation by both New Mexico Attorney General Gary King’s office and the Santa Fe Police Department for that incident.

“Over a 20-year career officers can acquire a number of complaints,” said Santa Fe Police Chief Raymond Rael. “Does the number (of complaints about Eiskant) concern me? Yes. Can I speak to it? No

"I wasn’t here when these issues occurred.”

Rael took over as police chief in March and said he only learned of the complaints against Eiskant after the newest complaint was reported to his administration in August. Still, he said he will take action against Eiskant if evidence of the officer’s misconduct is proven.

“Any time an officer amasses this number and this type of complaint, yes it concerns me,” Rael said.

However, Gail and her husband think something should have been done a long time ago.

“When you’ve got a stack of papers like that from vulnerable people that are saying, ‘You got a guy with a badge, a guy with a gun, a guy with authority out there, and nobody is doing anything about this?'” Gail’s husband said.

His wife echoed that point.

“How many more women, or people, or victims need to come forward before somebody takes this seriously?” Gail said.

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