New chief: We need ‘guardians’
No longer in interim role, department’s leader has eye on reform, demilitarization
Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina recalls his cadet training as “military style” — with awards based on physical strength and shooting ability. He sees a need for change.
“I look back and I feel that the military model was truly there to create warriors for the community, and the community doesn’t need warriors,” the chief, appointed to the job last month, said in a recent interview.
“They need guardians.” Medina, who served as interim chief for several months following the retirement of former Chief Michael Geier, stepped into the permanent position March 8 following his appointment by Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. He takes on an agency struggling to rein in increasing rates of violent crime while complying with reform efforts mandated by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 following an investigation that found a pattern of excessive use of force, including a high number of shootings by officers.
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Albuquerque police have decreased since then — falling from an average of 5.4 per year between 2010 and 2014 to 3.6 from 2015 to 2020, according to a city report and the Washington Post’s Fatal Force database.
But FBI data shows violent crime has risen in that time. In 2019, the rate of violence in Albuquerque was nearly four times the national average, at 1,408 offenses per 100,000 people, and nearly double the city’s rate a decade earlier.
The city has struggled in particular with a growing number of homicides.
Data from the Albuquerque Police Department shows a steady rise from 30 slayings 2014 to a high of 80 in 2019 and 76 in 2020.
The city is on track to set another record: There were 23 homicides in the first 65 days of 2021.
Medina’s history with the Albuquerque Police Department makes him no stranger to the complexities of crime in the city.
He served with the agency for 19 years before retiring to become chief of the Laguna Pueblo Police Department in 2014. He rejoined the Albuquerque force in 2017 as deputy chief, overseeing the Field Services Bureau.
With the help of new Superintendent of Police Reform Sylvester Stanley, who also was appointed last month, Medina hopes to put a heavier focus on community policing and community engagement in an effort to reduce the city’s violence — which he called a byproduct of “deeper social issues.”
Primary factors he sees as root causes: an increase in the opioid crisis and a rise in homelessness.
Medina said the effects of the coronavirus pandemic — a spike in unemployed workers and homeless residents — also contributed to an increase in robberies and homicides.
“We had good months last year for a few months, and at the beginning we thought the pandemic was going to help us,” Medina said. “But as money dried up and times became tough, we saw the increase [in crime]. It’s all these outside influences that we don’t control, sometimes, that control our crime rates and the attitudes of individuals in the community.”
The chief also sees a need to overhaul officer training.
“I think that moving away from that military model and putting the emphasis on strong communication and relationships with the community and tactics is key,” he said, “because officers do need to do their job.”
He plans to initiate an ambassador program that would, in theory, connect officers to “different communities based on religion, race, sexual orientation” within the city and speak with residents about those issues.
”The key is how they bring that back to APD and how we start creating a more fluid method of ensuring that our officers are aware of when there could be conflict within culture and law enforcement and how we navigate through that,” Medina said.
“The last part is, recruit from within that culture and those groups to make sure that we have a diverse workforce,” he added.
The department’s budget for fiscal year 2022 allows for 1,100 sworn positions, which would increase the force by 100 officers from the previous year if all positions are filled.
Medina and Stanley bring minority representation to the force’s leadership. Medina is the agency’s first Hispanic police chief since 2001, one of 13 in the department’s history, he said. Stanley, who served as chief of the Isleta Pueblo Police Department from 2018 to 2021, is one of only three African Americans to hold a police chief position in the state.
Stanley’s primary duties will be managing police academy operations, including Justice Department requirements related to training, and overseeing two internal affairs divisions focused on discipline and reviews of incidents involving use of force.
The biggest challenges to meeting the requirements of the department’s consent decree with the Justice Department — and ensuring reforms last long beyond the federal monitoring program — will be changing its culture, he said.
“What’s important for the public to understand is that the department is not completely tainted,” Sylvester said. “What I mean by that — yes, we’ve had a couple bad cases. It’s no secret. That’s why I’m here with the consent decree. But that doesn’t mean we have a bad department.”
Mayor Tim Keller said in a news release it was “clear the department would benefit” from a combination of Medina’s history with the agency and Stanley’s fresh perspective — what he described as a concoction for change.
During a community input process tied to the search for a new chief, Keller said, “We heard and understand that here in our town, it takes both an insider and an outsider to strike the right balance on the dual challenges of crime-fighting and police reform.”
Late last month, the Albuquerque Police Department held a news conference to provide details on two officer shootings this year, one of them fatal. Claude Trivino, 40, of Hernández — a military veteran and father of three who had been diagnosed with mental illness — was killed in February after throwing a knife at an officer responding to complaints he was disrupting traffic.
Medina said at the news conference he would like to see more funding to “beef up the mental health system” to prevent such incidents.
Though the department plans to continue assessing and updating its use-of-force policy, Medina said in the interview, it will never eliminate force as an option for officers.
“It’s inevitable,” he said. “We have to make sure that we are trained. This is the key: Did we train our officers to use the minimal amount of force necessary and make sure it was proportional to the situation?”
Stanley also said changing the department’s culture begins with training.
“Once we get everyone on the same playing field, I think it will be OK because then it’s going to be the new foundation for the department,” he said. “So it’s really simple to maintain, once we get everyone on board.”
Stanley emphasized the goal is to rebuild the community’s trust in the department.
”Who are you going to call when you’re in trouble, or you need somebody?” Stanley said. “You’re still going to call Albuquerque police.
”We want to make sure the men and women are professional, that they have integrity and they’re honest in their investigations, which is the reason you call them in the first place.”