We need a hearing so APD reform moves forward

The discussion is just shy of 9 minutes, but the police recording of the court-appointed independent monitor and Albuquerque’s city attorney shows if the first two-plus years of police reform have been difficult, the next few should be doozies. The only bright spot is we know police lapel cameras work. It’s understood that by design the relationship between James Ginger, whose Public Management Resources Inc. is overseeing implementation of a Department of Justice settlement agreement regarding the Albuquerque Police Department, and the police force is adversarial. Change is hard, and Ginger is entrusted with monitoring whether DOJ-ordered changes happen.

Those changes are essential, because in 2014, after 24 shootings by APD officers in a four-year period, a DOJ investigation found systemic problems within the department, including a “pattern and practice of excessive force” and a “culture of aggression.” That resulted in the ongoing DOJ settlement agreement Ginger is monitoring for the court.

So APD Assistant Police Chief Robert Huntsman is exactly right, this is not a game but a multimillion-dollar endeavour that taxpayers, and citizens, and police officers are counting on to work — because those are the folks who will all be here long after Ginger and his team put Albuquerque in their rear-view mirrors.

On the March 2016 tape Ginger accuses City Attorney Jessica Hernandez of springing surprises on him in front of the City Council and rejects her request for a preview of his latest report on the progress APD has/has not made. The conversation devolves from there, with Ginger doing most of the verbal finger-pointing. It says something that a member of the APD command staff felt the need to record the meeting at some point.

And it says even more that the city claims that a member of Ginger’s monitoring team told a police employee — neither of whom are named — that Ginger changed a portion of the sixth report the team member had written to make it more critical of APD. The monitoring team member, the city alleges, told the police employee “it is clear that Dr. Ginger has an ax to grind.”

So now city officials are asking U.S. District Judge Robert Brack to conduct a hearing to determine whether Ginger is biased and, if so, what’s the next step?

There’s no question the monitoring buck stops with Ginger, and he has the right to be the final editor on reports that bear his name, or that there’s been plenty to criticize about how APD has operated. Ginger’s latest report released last week is again highly critical of the command staff, internal affairs and the Force Review Board, which Huntsman heads and which reviews use-of-force cases. And it’s unfortunate to have to ask a federal judge to monitor a federal monitor.

But the whole reform process is now in question with this “ax to grind” allegation and eight minutes and 57 seconds of tape that highlight personality conflicts and petty squabbling rather than APD reform progress or lack thereof. Clearly it’s past time for a voice of authority to step in.

So bring on the evidentiary hearing, attach names to the claims, and resolve this conflict so, as one of the command staff at the fated March 2016 meeting said, we can “keep moving forward in a positive way.”

Albuquerque is two-plus years and millions of dollars in to this police department reform process. The officers who put their lives on the line, the taxpayers who are footing the bill and the families of civilians and sworn officers who have died deserve to know the process is all about a better APD.

And not a game.

“It’s fine, I can play the game.”

— Court-appointed monitor James Ginger

“It’s not a game to me.”

— APD Assistant Police Chief Robert Huntsman

“You guys are going to be collateral damage. But I didn’t start this.”

— Ginger