PHOENIX — Albuquerque's police chief regularly talks with other chiefs across the country who are either currently under a Department of Justice consent decree or being investigated for potential civil rights violations.
“We've had almost every department that’s getting ready to go under a consent decree or under a consent decree come to visit us," Chief Harold Medina told ABC15. “We've developed strong processes; we've pushed back.”
Chief Medina and other parties involved in Albuquerque’s police reform process under federal oversight were eager to share what they’ve learned in the last decade.
In 2014, the Department of Justice found a pattern of civil rights violations relating to police uses of force, including shootings. The following year, a negotiated settlement called a consent decree was approved by a judge and tracked by an independent monitor.
Phoenix is about a decade behind Albuquerque. The Department of Justice opened a pattern or practice investigation there in 2021. Since then, federal lawyers and investigators have received more than 147,000 documents and 22,000 body-worn camera videos. They've interviewed 130 police and city employees and have ridden along for 200 hours with Phoenix officers. City leaders expect the DOJ to release its findings soon.
“I would directly say to the people in your community, that they're fooling themselves if they think these lawyers are coming here as some kind of radicals who are going to pick on a decent police department,” said retired attorney Peter Cubra. He has been closely watching the DOJ's consent decree play out in Albuquerque.
“If they're going to bring one in your city, it's a pretty clear sign that the facts there are very bad,” Cubra added.
“Albuquerque didn't fight; they signed on the dotted line,” said Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association.
Albuquerque’s reform agreement with the DOJ is 300 paragraphs long. It includes massive overhauls to policies, training, and discipline. Willoughby urges Phoenix to make as many common-sense reforms and get as much community buy-in as possible now, then he recommends negotiating hard when creating any binding reform agreement.
“This is going to cost hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars,” Willoughby said. “You have to stand up for yourself in this process, and I think that Albuquerque would already be done with this, or in a better place, if they had."
In the early consent decree years, the Albuquerque police department was accused of trying to evade compliance, which wasted time and money.
“What a consent decree hopes to achieve, is not just to sort of tweak a couple of policies,” said Daniel Williams from the ACLU of New Mexico. “What we're really looking for is that deep cultural, systemic transformation.”
“The way to achieve what's laid out is by really causing that culture change within the organization,” said Aja Brooks, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico. “Focus on not so much fighting against the Department of Justice or the fact that there's a consent decree, but really trying to focus resources on changing that use of excessive force or changing whatever those problems are that are identified.”
Chief Medina said he has a good working relationship with the DOJ now, but he has pushed back when he believed rules to improve accountability created unmanageable workloads.
“The city needs to stand behind the person that chooses chief, and they need to let them make the best decisions and pick the fights that need to be picked,” Medina advises Phoenix and other cities. “They're doing this job every day, and they know that agency well, and you got to give them the support they need,”
Over the past three years, Albuquerque has moved from 64% to 94% operational compliance with their consent decree. Use-of-force incidents are down more than 40% even as officers make more arrests.
There are still a lot of questions about how to wrap up the consent decree and move forward, which is why local leaders advise Phoenix to clearly define an endgame from the start.
“There has to be a measurable exit plan out of these agreements,” Willoughby said. “You can't just have a carte blanche - the DOJ is here until the job is done - because what we've seen in Albuquerque is the goals constantly change.”
Albuquerque leaders have successfully pushed to terminate federal oversight for some areas of policing. Last month the department announced it will resume full control of all new use of force investigations.
ABC15 Investigator Melissa Blasius covers policing and politics. Got a news tip? Email Melissa at Melissa.Blasius@abc15.com.
