In a year that, by any measure, hasn't exactly been slopping over with shining examples of American law enforcement—the profoundly troubled Denver Sheriff's Department may be the least brilliant of them all.

The history of law enforcement in New Mexico—dating back to the days of the Wild West, if not earlier—is littered with the names of men who, in a just society, would have been run out of the state on a rail instead of given a badge and a gun.