ABQ needs an APD chief with a real plan

The city of Albuquerque last week whittled its list of finalists for chief of police to three, including interim chief Harold Medina. The other contenders to emerge from an initial field of 39 applicants are Clinton Nichols, chief of police in Commerce City, Colo., and Joseph Sullivan, a retired deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Their backgrounds are very different, and all bring certain qualifications that make them attractive. Medina is a longtime veteran of APD. He knows the ropes. Nichols was a commander in Las Vegas, Nev., and in Commerce City with a force of about 140 employees he developed a five-year strategic plan in anticipation of reform efforts — important given APD’s struggles with complying with the ongoing reform process here overseen by a monitor and federal judge. Sullivan spent 38 years in Philadelphia where he retired last year as deputy commissioner of patrol operations, a post where he oversaw 4,698 sworn officers and was lauded for his outreach to the LGBTQ community.

Mayor Tim Keller will make a selection soon and hosted a webinar with the three on Saturday. In a news release Thursday, the city announced it had posted the finalists’ resumes at https://www.cabq.gov/police-chief-search and asked for locals’ questions and input to be emailed to chiefsearchinput@cabq.gov.

Make no mistake, after Keller ran in 2018 on a platform of strengthening APD and combatting crime, then in 2020 fired the hand-picked chief he said was a perfect fit for the job, this will be his most important crime-fighting decision since taking office.

Because what’s happening on the streets of Albuquerque is distressing, to say the least.

There were 76 homicides in Albuquerque last year, just four shy of the record. So far this year, we’ve already recorded seven. They range from a road rage shooting on Central near San Mateo to a woman found shot to death near Rhode Island and Chico NE to a man found shot to death at the Motel 6 on Avenida Cesar Chavez near I-25. As of Thursday, there had been just one arrest — and one of the new chief’s first priorities must be working to upgrade and improve the performance of APD’s homicide division, an overworked unit with an unacceptably low clearance rate and major missteps in a couple of high profile cases — like the Victoria Martens and Jacqueline Vigil murders.

Perhaps as distressing as the persistently high homicide death toll is the in-your-face lawlessness that poses a risk to hard-working retail personnel and customers. For example:

The Journal reported on New Year’s Day that a couple were arrested after stealing high-dollar merchandise — on occasion using a power saw to cut through security measures on items like handbags — from stores at Coronado and Winrock malls. “Don’t even bother, bro,” the young male offender warned while pointing a gun at a Macy’s store security officer. The good news in that story was the arrest — although the woman was released on recognizance pending trial.

And here is a recent sampling from Crime Stoppers:

■ During November and December, an unknown male and female have been stealing from Home Depot, Albertsons and Ross Dress for Less. “On several occasions, the male brandished a firearm and stuck it in the face of the security team and associates.”

■ On Dec. 23, an unknown male entered the Lowe's at Paseo del Norte and San Pedro. “The male spends approximately 27 minutes inside the store filling a shopping cart with merchandise. As he approaches the exit with the cart full of unpaid merchandise, he brandished a firearm,” then fled in a pickup truck.

■ On Jan. 9 at the Target Uptown, several “subjects used accelerant fluids to ignite four fires within the store and outside, causing severe damage.” This list could go on. And it does. Between mid-October and Jan. 1, there were eight reported armed robberies of postal workers in Albuquerque, according to Postal Inspector Brook Robinson. He noted it’s not just devastating and traumatic to the letter carriers held up at gunpoint, but it has an impact on people counting on the mail for checks, medications and important correspondence.

There have been arrests, including Cisco CasausAlires, 20, who is charged in federal court with robbery of a mail carrier, mail theft, bank fraud and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. He admitted that in one robbery he took the postal worker’s wallet, phone and all the packages and mail in his truck.

Not surprisingly, Casaus-Alires is a repeat offender. He was sentenced in 2018 to supervised probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery in the death of 18-year-old Aliyah Garcia. Since then he has been arrested on child abuse, battery, stolen gun and drug charges. The fact that he’s wandering around and allegedly holding up postal workers is a testament to how our criminal justice system works — or doesn’t — at the state level.

So maybe we all think twice about venturing out to a store — not just because of COVID but because of crime. But it’s worth noting social media sites have plenty of reports of people wandering through backyards, casing houses, checking out cars parked along the streets and in driveways. One Northeast Heights family reported that thieves drove up and hooked up their 28-foot Airstream trailer and simply drove away with it.

So it’s important people take their own security seriously.

The city simply cannot grow and thrive if people don’t feel safe. And the answer to that isn’t suppressing information and playing down the problem. The answer is getting violent, career criminals off the streets through constitutional and community policing — with an aggressive posture from prosecutors and a public willing to hold judges accountable.

APD under its new leadership will face a daunting challenge in turning this situation around. We’re all waiting to hear how the new chief plans to make that happen.