ALBUQUERQUE, NM — As the U.S. Department of Justice is wrapping up its pattern or practice investigation in Phoenix, Valley leaders can learn from Albuquerque’s experiences after nearly a decade of federally mandated policing reforms to better protect civil rights.
In April 2014, the DOJ found a pattern of excessive force at the Albuquerque Police Department.
Federal investigators noted APD officers "too often use deadly force." There had been 20 officer-involved shootings resulting in fatalities from 2009 to 2012. The DOJ concluded that “a majority were unconstitutional," and a significant amount of the force was used “against persons with mental illness and in crisis.”
The DOJ’s investigative findings came just weeks after large protests in the streets over police shootings. Those protests were prompted by the killing of James Boyd, a man who was homeless and mentally ill. Albuquerque officers contacted him because he was camping illegally and shot him when he failed to drop knives in his possession.
After months of negotiation over a consent decree with nearly 300 paragraphs detailing policing improvements, a federal judge signed off on the agreement in 2015, and an independent monitor was appointed to observe officers and collect data for the court.
“All these years thinking back, I can see where the mistakes happened with the Albuquerque Police Department, so we got to a point where we deserved this consent decree,” said current APD Chief Harold Medina. Medina spent most of his career working in Albuquerque, and he became chief in 2020.
Medina describes the early years under the consent decree as a “rocky rollercoaster.”
“Was there a lot of misspent money-chasing processes that didn't work, chasing processes that weren't correct? There were millions upon millions that were spent in those processes,” said Medina.
The department ended up rewriting the officers’ use-of-force policy three times.
“I was very much against our second revision of the use-of-force policy,” Medina said. “I knew that my officers could not sustain taking calls for service and having investigations that lasted up to five hours because we put two hands together in a forced handcuffing.”
There were also changes to internal affairs investigations of alleged misconduct and the disciplinary matrix.
“They've created a monster,” said Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association.
Willoughby said there was too much scrutiny on officer behavior and minor infractions, and the "reforms" had a chilling effect on crimefighting and morale.
“What we're telling our officers is, ‘Don't do it. Don't do anything. You don't get in trouble if you don't do anything,'” said Willoughby.
In 2020, six years into the process, the independent monitor accused APD of being “deliberately indifferent” to the real reforms in ending excessive force. He told the federal judge that APD’s compliance with the consent decree was “evasive.”
The scathing report was issued just weeks after APD’s chief had been fired, and Harold Medina was promoted to replace him.
“I think we have seen some attitude changes from leadership,” said Daniel Williams, a police reform advocate with the ACLU of New Mexico. “At some point, there was a realization that this is just going to keep going up, and we can't keep resisting it.”
Medina told ABC15 that consent decree compliance was attainable only through culture change within the department.
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“First of all, a police chief has to have a strong relationship with the community,” said Medina.
To improve community connections, Medina had his police commanders make sandwiches for people experiencing homelessness every Saturday. He said they prepared 350 sack lunches each week for a year.
“I see the empathy that our department has gained for members of the community,” Medina said. “At the same time, making sure the officers know that they're supported, that we want them to work hard, and that there's an expectation they work hard to make Albuquerque safe.
Medina said he saw low officer morale and administrative logjams resulting from some of the initial DOJ reforms, especially the disciplinary measures.
Medina said he decided to push back against the DOJ “when they truly don't know what is the best practice on monitoring teams when they don't understand the specifics of your collective bargaining agreement, your state law, or the processes within your community.”
As a result, Medina said, “We developed a good working relationship, and it was no longer ideas or scholastic visions, or unrealistic expectations that were being pushed upon the Albuquerque Police Department.”
In the last three years, Albuquerque moved from only complying with 64% of the consent decree's requirements for police operations to complying with 94%.
Over the same three years, there was a 42% decrease in use of force incidents.
“That's something that should be celebrated,” Williams said. “I think that law enforcement agencies around the state, certainly, I think, even around the country can really look at some of the things that APD has done - some of the policies and practices that they've put into place - that have driven those force numbers down.”
In addressing concerns that a focus on compliance has resulted in less focus on crime-fighting, Chief Medina told ABC15 the number of felony arrests increased by 20% in 2023. After several years of increasing murder rates, the department said reported homicides decreased by 22% in 2023.
Another statistic is more troubling: A spike in officer-involved shootings, which hit record numbers in Albuquerque in the last two years.
In November 2022, police fatally shot Jesus Crosby. Crosby was in a mental health crisis and was brandishing a small nail file in the police headquarters’ parking lot when he was killed. His death reignited concerns about the consent decree’s effectiveness.
“They've handcuffed tools and resources that were created for officers to safely get situations under control and individuals in custody,” Willoughby said. “When you limit those responses, things have a tendency to escalate, and you wind up with a deadly force encounter.”
“Killing people in Albuquerque remains a big problem,” said retired attorney Peter Cubra, a police reform advocate.
Albuquerque recently created a Community Safety Department to send trained behavioral and mental health professionals into non-violent situations with people in crisis.
“Bringing people who don't have guns and who are specially qualified to deal with people with mental problems is the right solution for every community,” said Cubra.
This week, a federal judge is meeting with community advocates, the police chief, officers’ union leaders, and Department of Justice representatives to talk about whether Albuquerque has done enough to end federal intervention.
“No one entity is perfect, and as long as there are mechanisms in place to address those situations when they do happen, and ensure that they're not happening again and again, I think that that's, hopefully, what we've put in place and, hopefully, what we're all striving for.”
In advance of the status hearing with the federal judge, APD announced it is resuming control of use-of-force investigations, marking another key milestone at the end of federal oversight of the department.
APD and the DOJ agreed to transition responsibility for investigating shootings and other serious use-of-force incidents. For several years an external team, created by the DOJ, had managed those probes. However recent reports showed improvements in the atmosphere and the investigative process in APD’s own Internal Affairs Force Division.
