In the wake of the Albuquerque Police Department’s announcement that it is in full compliance with a decade-long reform effort, the general consensus among stakeholders is that significant gains have been made, but there are still instances of excessive force.
And, they say, the city has to be careful to maintain the progress it has made in holding officers accountable.
96% compliance
Although use of force by officers has decreased overall, advocates and investigators continue to point to what they say are instances of excessive force — especially against those in the midst of a mental health crisis — over the past couple of years. Some of those cases resulted in an officer being disciplined, or even fired. Others didn’t. In one case an officer who was fired for a shooting that violated policy was rehired as a civilian investigator.
Read more about a recent shooting involving an officer with a troubled past here.
Plus, the Civilian Police Oversight Agency (CPOA) — whose mission statement is “advancing constitutional policing and accountability for APD and the Albuquerque community” — does not have the staff to efficiently conduct investigations. Its reconstituted board just began meeting again in February after a year hiatus.
In fact, the city overall is at 96% compliance in the most recent report from the independent monitor — covering August 2023 through January 2024 — because the ten paragraphs involving the CPOA remain out of operational compliance.
When it was signed near the end of 2014 the Court Approved Settlement Agreement (CASA) included 276 paragraphs with requirements ranging from investigations into use of force to the creation of specialized units to recruitment of cadets.
Currently 25% of the paragraphs are still being monitored, 19% have been suspended — meaning APD is monitoring them itself — and 56% have been dismissed. After the paragraphs are self-monitored for two years, they are dismissed.
After all the paragraphs are dismissed the settlement agreement will be complete.
That report found APD itself to be in full compliance with the settlement agreement, but it included some “very concerning and troubling stories,” said Daniel Williams, the policing policy advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.
“When you read about a passively resisting woman being tased and the investigation not being handled well — that’s really concerning and upsetting to read,” Williams said. “I think we also know that there have been deaths at the hands of APD in recent years that have raised a lot of questions.”
Peter Cubra, a retired attorney and longtime advocate who was involved in the process before stepping away last fall, answers a “definite yes” when asked if he thinks the reforms improved the city.
But he continues to point to cases of police shooting people who are “behaviorally challenged” and questioned whether “we ever interrupted the long-standing pattern and practice of making excuses for and covering it up when it happens.”
“Another way to say this is: most of the time when you shoot someone who’s having a behavioral health crisis, it’s an improper shooting,” Cubra said. “So we have never interrupted that pattern and this lawsuit hasn’t changed that.”
Disagreements about shooting
One of the cases frequently cited by critics is that of Jesus Crosby, who was shot to death by two officers (and tased by two others) in the parking lot of APD headquarters in late 2022. He was wielding nail clippers with the file out and in the midst of a mental health crisis. A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed by Crosby’s family.
In that case — despite internal and external disagreement — the officers were ultimately found to have acted within policy when they fired the fatal shots.
Initially, investigators and representatives from two external oversight agencies — the CPOA and one tasked with training APD detectives — determined the Officers Alex Couch and Chance Gore violated the use of force policy but they were overruled by their higher-ups.
The determination was debated in a Force Review Board meeting and criticized in the last federal hearing, although an attorney with the U.S. DOJ said he had not seen other similar cases.
In response to questions about the shooting, Mayor Tim Keller said if the case had occurred prior to the settlement agreement it only would have been reviewed by a sergeant and the public would have had little information about it. He said officers would not have learned from the incident, policy wouldn’t have been corrected and it would have been “passed off as part of policing.”
“All of that has changed now,” Keller said at a press conference earlier this month. “So while the outcome may be something that we didn’t do everything right, and we have to make changes going forward, that wouldn’t have been possible before CASA. Now we stop the pattern. There may still be an issue, but we adjust the pattern in the right direction.”
Lauren Keefe, the city attorney, said the disagreements in the Crosby case do not mean that the process is not working.
“What we have to do is follow the process and follow the steps,” Keefe said. “The monitor has said in the past that sometimes we don’t agree with APD’s conclusion…but APD is following the process, APD is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
Following the shooting, APD adjusted its use of force policies to clarify when officers should use less lethal options.
It also changed the role of the Force Review Board — made up of department leaders and the CPOA executive director as a nonvoting member — so that it is no longer determining if a shooting violated policy. Now, Keefe said, it does a “more high-level review” to determine if there are patterns with tactics or supervision or what needs to change.
Superintendent of Police Reform
At the same press conference City Desk ABQ asked what officials consider to be the most important system in place to ensure that investigations catch when an officer uses excessive force.
Police Chief Harold Medina pointed to the position of superintendent of police reform and how he has “reduced the number of discipline authorities and people who have the final say-so on reviewing an investigation and if the findings were really legit.”
Superintendent of Police Reform Eric Garcia said he has cut the number of people with disciplinary authority from 20 to four.
“So the discipline is consistent and impartial throughout the department,” Garcia said. “As far as investigations go the chief put one of his strongest commanders in Internal Affairs Force Division, Cmdr. (Scott) Norris.”
Garcia was appointed to the position in November 2023 after serving on an interim basis. Garcia has been with the department since 1990.
When the position was first announced in March 2021, Keller stressed the importance of “an insider and an outsider” — Medina and the then-superintendent — “to strike the right balance on the dual challenges of crime-fighting and police reform.” Since then two others, not including Garcia, have held the title. The superintendent reports to the chief administrative officer.
Keller’s administration created a compliance bureau within APD shortly after he took office and last fall appointed three people to serve as a monitoring team to take the place of the independent monitor.
Civilian investigators
All of the requirements in the CASA that remain out of compliance involve the Civilian Police Oversight Agency (CPOA) and its board. For almost the entirety of 2023, the board was disbanded while the City Council sought applicants.
Diane McDermott, the CPOA executive director, said she expects the requirements regarding the board to be in compliance when the next report is released since members have been appointed and began meeting again in February. As for the investigation side — handled by the agency — the main barrier is resources.
McDermott said she requested funding for 16 staff that can do investigations — including some in a supervisory role — as well as a director and deputy director. Instead, the city council allocated funding for 12. Six of those positions have been filled and a seventh person is in the process of being brought on.
McDermott said she is hopeful that after consulting with HR she can make one of the positions a supervisor.
Regardless, the CPOA is ill-equipped the way it’s set up right now to ensure that officers are being held accountable for excessive force or unconstitutional shootings. Recommendations for discipline from investigators and policy changes from the board are just that — recommendations.
“Accountability-wise, the CPOA will have a role in that but it won’t be the sole role,” McDermott said. “There isn’t a way of being the sole role unless they make a bigger, restructure and a bigger investment.”
She pointed to the three monitors appointed by the city, as well as the compliance bureau and a data analytics unit as essential to holding officers accountable if they use excessive force.
“So as long as those pieces all continue to exist and continue to function, then there’s less likely a chance of things backsliding,” McDermott added.