Would-be mayor reveals crime-fighting plan
Tim Keller wants a new police chief, more officers and to wrap up reforms
Albuquerque mayoral candidate Tim Keller unveiled his strategy for attacking crime in the city Tuesday, and it includes bringing in a new police chief, creating a civilian-led department of public safety and retooling recruitment standards for police officers to bring them more in line with the state’s.
“It’s unfortunate, but crime is absolutely out of control,” Keller said during a news conference outside the City Clerk’s Office.
Keller said the city needs to deal with the problem head on and stop pointing fingers at others.
“This is the mayor’s responsibility,” he said. “It’s the mayor’s job to actually address crime in Albuquerque.”
Crime has emerged as the top issue in the mayor’s race. FBI statistics show that violent and property crime in Albuquerque have increased in recent years, and the National Insurance Crime Bureau reported earlier this year that the Albuquerque area had the highest per-capita rate of auto thefts in the country.
Under his leadership, Keller said, the city would recommit to a community policing model, try to bring back retired officers and get rid of the “bunker mentality coming from the top.” He said he would work to get U.S. Department of Justice reforms completed as quickly as possible and redirect the millions of dollars being spent on those efforts to hire more officers.
Keller said he would bring in a civilian chief of public safety to oversee reforms across all public safety departments and he would create a multi-agency collaboration force to get more officers on the streets right away.
As for the officer shortage, Keller said he would undertake aggressive recruitment efforts to attract well-trained officers with a goal of having at least 1,000 officers on the street within two years. The city’s police force currently hovers at around 860 officers.
“We are going to hire every single officer that we have a dollar for,” Keller said.
To do that, he said, he would aggressively recruit officers from other agencies and he would look at relaxing recruitment standards to bring them more in line with state standards that every other city in New Mexico follows.
Some of what Keller is proposing is similar to what the seven other mayoral candidates have said they would do. All have said they would replace Police Chief Gorden Eden, put more officers on the streets and try to wrap up the DOJ reforms as quickly as possible.