Albuquerque City Councilor Nichole Rogers is demanding answers after learning that Jayvon Givan’s family wasn’t told of his death for more than a year, even though police ruled it a suicide.
Givan, a 28-year-old homeless Black man from Kansas City, Missouri, was found dead Sept. 17, 2024 outside a Westside business closed for renovations. His birthday was Oct. 8, which would have made him 29. According to police reports, he was hanging by a metal chain from a stucco pillar in a shopping area off Corrales Road near Alameda Blvd. Officers and forensic pathologists ruled the death a suicide, and a pair of eyeglasses and a journal were found at the scene.
The reports show his body went to the Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI), but no next of kin was contacted until his twin sister, Jaivryon Walker, filed a missing persons report on Oct. 1, 2025. The Kansas City Defender reported that Givan was cremated before his family was notified of his death, though City Desk could not independently confirm it.
Rogers said the city must review how APD and OMI handled the case to make sure families aren’t left in the dark.
“It doesn’t matter, just because he was potentially arrested or potentially homeless or any of that, it doesn’t matter,” Rogers said. “It doesn’t matter, he still deserved for us to at least do everything in our power to make sure we got it right and that we found where his people were.”
At the Oct. 6 City Council meeting, Rogers pressed APD leadership on why the family wasn’t notified sooner. She asked Chief of Staff Eric Hernandez why the public and Givan’s family were only learning about the death now.
“Why are we just hearing about it now, and why is the family just hearing about this now?” Rogers said, pointing to the gap between Givan’s death and his sister filing the missing persons report.
Hernandez said APD and OMI followed Standard Operating Procedure 221, which outlines officers’ duties in unattended deaths. He said officers notified a crime scene investigator and OMI, and the investigation concluded when OMI confirmed there was no foul play and ruled the death a suicide.
He said APD attempted to contact Givan’s next of kin last year but was unable to reach anyone, including his mother. The case only resurfaced after Givan’s sister filed the missing persons report.
Rogers said the timeline shows that while the system followed procedure, it still left a family in the dark for more than a year.
“My distrust doesn’t allow me to say that they did everything,” Rogers said. “In my heart, what do I feel by looking at everything that I have access to, and what do I feel in my heart and my soul and my gut, because I trust that’s never steered me wrong and as soon as I heard this, something didn’t feel right.”
Rogers said the revelation caused confusion and pain in the community. Misinformation about Givan’s death has fueled public concern. Social media posts falsely claimed he was found hanging from a tree, though police reports confirm he was found by a chain attached to a stucco pillar.
“I think for us in the Black community, and this is common knowledge in our community, when our folks commit suicide, it ain’t gonna be by hanging ourselves,” Rogers said. “Culturally and historically, that has been done to our people for generations. We typically don’t do that to ourselves straight up.”
Calls for an independent investigation
The confusion and outrage helped spark a rally Monday, Oct. 6, organized by Black Lives Matter New Mexico, attended by roughly 100 people, according to KUNM. Community organizer Selinda Guerrero said her group contacted Givan’s family and called for an independent investigation.
“At best, this police department is grossly incompetent. At worst, it has participated in covering up a modern-day lynching. Either way, we will not stand down. Jayvon’s life mattered. His family deserves the truth,” Guerrero said.
In response to mounting questions, APD Chief Harold Medina issued a statement Tuesday, Oct. 7, which said the department relies on medical investigators to determine the cause of death but agreed the case warrants further scrutiny.
“While this appears to be death by suicide,” Medina said, “the fact that it involved hanging is enough reason for further scrutiny.”
APD will turn over all evidence to the New Mexico Department of Justice (NMDOJ), the agency conducting the independent review.
“I am arranging for an independent review to look into the initial investigation of Mr. Givan’s death. Our field officers rely on medical investigators to determine the cause and manner of death, which informs the department’s decision to pursue a criminal investigation,” Medina said.
The Justice Department confirmed the review. “The New Mexico Department of Justice has received a request from the Albuquerque Police Department to conduct an independent review of Mr. Givan’s death. Our office has accepted the request and assigned an agent to carry out the investigation,” NMDOJ Chief of Staff Lauren Rodriguez said.
“I’m grateful that they passed it off to somebody else to just look at their processes and see how they can get better,” Rogers said.
A systemic failure
At the time of his death, APD records listed Givan’s address as the St. Elizabeth shelter in Santa Fe. Earlier, a Sandoval County criminal complaint for conspiracy to commit armed robbery from February listed his address as HopeWorks in Albuquerque, reflecting his unstable housing situation.
Rogers said Givan’s circumstances may have contributed to a flawed investigation. She added that housing instability and racial bias often affect how law enforcement handles cases, leaving families in the dark.
“Your housing status and your race and ethnicity absolutely play a part in how hard [the police are] going to look for what happened to you.” She added that simply following procedure is not enough when the outcome is so devastating.
“It doesn’t matter just because he was potentially arrested or potentially homeless or any of that, it doesn’t matter,” she said, “He still deserved for us to at least do everything in our power to make sure we got it right and that we found where his people were.”
Jazmin Moreno, system improvement director at the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness, said Givan’s case exposes critical gaps in how agencies coordinate care for people experiencing homelessness.
“When someone is experiencing homelessness or simply does not have a support network within direct proximity, our current system fails to treat them as part of our community,” Moreno said. “We need shared accountability, faster communication and an expectation that every person deserves to be known and cared for, in life and after death.”
She added that while tools like the Homeless Management Information System exist, agencies lack a standardized process for sharing critical information.
“It’s also important to recognize that the people working in this system are doing incredibly difficult jobs, often with limited resources,” Moreno said. “Direct service providers are operating in a fragmented system that makes a compassionate, coordinated response challenging.”
According to Rogers, the city also needs to improve processes for unintended or suspicious deaths with no next of kin. “My first thought was, how many other people are out there like this?” she said.
Demanding change
Rogers said her role isn’t to rebuild public trust in law enforcement but to push for systemic policy change.
“My first job is to support the family and figure out what happened to him — and they want to know where are his remains and how do they get them home,” she said.
She said her job is “to hold them accountable and ask the questions and fix the processes that allow for something like this to happen and to work with them to fix the processes that allow for this to happen.” Even if APD followed policy, Rogers said, the outcome showed the procedures themselves were flawed.
According to Rogers, the city must make sure this kind of failure doesn’t happen again, especially when police can’t locate next of kin.
During the council meeting, Rogers pressed APD on how the system could fail so completely, asking: “How do we do this so it doesn’t happen again? What are the processes in place, and what do we need to tweak to make sure we have a better process for this?”
She continued, “What is your process for how you investigate something like this? How hard do you look for next of kin? Because that was the thing — OMI or APD couldn’t find a next of kin. He wasn’t a John Doe; he was identified. How do we make sure this doesn’t happen again, and what needs to change to make the process better?”
Moreno stressed that data systems like the By-Name List and Homeless Management Information System are crucial to keeping people from slipping through the cracks.
“The By-Name List is meant to ensure that every person experiencing homelessness is known by name and tracked through their housing journey,” she said. “When data isn’t accurate or timely, it impacts real people.”
She said better coordination requires regular cross-agency data reviews, training on how to use the data, and shared agreements on data entry and tracking.
“Eventually, we might be able to create a better flagging system when contact is lost with someone, or when a person hasn’t had engagement in a long time,” she said.
Rogers added that the city must fix processes on how agencies respond to these types of cases, “especially for folks of color and unsheltered.”
According to Moreno, Givan’s case shows the need for clear policies on racial equity and cultural competency in handling deaths of unsheltered people.
“The fact that Jayvon was a young Black man who was cremated without his family’s consent calls for cultural competency, anti-racist practices, and systems built around dignity and humanity that respect families’ cultural and personal wishes,” she said.
She added the issue goes beyond homelessness, reflecting racial patterns in how vulnerable populations are treated.
“From outreach and data collection to how deaths are handled, especially for Black and Brown community members who are often treated as less visible or less deserving of care,” Moreno said. “The underlying issue is that we lack coordinated systems, cultural responsiveness and accountability when instead we should confront the racialized patterns and systemic gaps.”
What’s next
Rogers said she plans to follow the findings closely while pushing for city policy changes to prevent similar cases.
She is calling for major structural reforms, including an African American board and commission to oversee cases involving missing, murdered and endangered Black residents.
Rogers said the board should connect to the Office of Black Community Engagement, which she founded, so the Black community can inform APD “on how to best support us through things like this.”
She is also seeking records she had not yet received, including the OMI report, 39 crime scene photos and lapel camera footage from the responding officers.
Activists in Albuquerque plan a celebration of life for Jayvon Givan on Saturday, Oct. 11, the same day a balloon release is scheduled in his hometown of Kansas City.
There are several issues here, one of which involves “efforts” to notify Mr. Givan’s family. How, and how many times, did APD and OMI attempt to notify his family? Policies are only as good as the people who are implementing the policies. Let’s hope NMDOJ does a thorough review of this matter.
It is very unfortunate that Mr. Givan’s body was cremated while questions still remained about his identity and manner of death. Perhaps under such circumstances a body should be preserved until all attempts have been exhausted and the case has been satisfactorily closed. It is difficult to see how his manner of death can be decided conclusively at this point when the body is no longer available for examination.
This happened under Keller’s watch. Keller and Medina are corrupt criminals. Do we really want more of this cover ups, lying, gaslighting? VOTE for ALEX UBALLEZ for Mayor. Alex Uballez is the only candidate who wants to be mayor of ABQ for the right reasons.