APD losing Officers at an Alarming Rate!!!

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December 11, 2021, 3:45 am

Daniel Klein – freelanceUpdated: December 10, 2021 8:40 PMPosted: December 10, 2021 06:34 PM

The most recent payroll from the Albuquerque Police Department shows that APD is still hemorrhaging police officers at an alarming rate. Since the last pay period (2 weeks ago) APD has lost another 7 officers. APD now employs 924 sworn officers. There are several “commanders” hired from out of state. Their law enforcement status in New Mexico is unclear. Are they sworn? APD should disclose this when they are hired, but anymore the basic answer to questions from APD is, “Do an IPRA”. That’s not the transparency we were promised.

If the anticipated number of retirements happen on December 31, 2021, APD will be back below 900 sworn officers. All of those new hires in the last 4 years have done nothing to stop the veteran officers from fleeing this department. APD staffing is no better than when Mayor Keller started at in 2018. Albuquerque taxpayers have wasted millions of dollars in training for new and veteran officers, only to have them quit, retire or resign. This has truly been a huge waste of taxpayer money with nothing to show for it. Why hasn’t Mayor Keller done more to keep these officers from leaving?

At least one officer on the current pay list has pending charges (DWI, tampering with evidence and negligent use of a deadly weapon) against him. Has this officer has been on paid leave for the last seven months? Are their other officers on this list who are actually on leave, therefore not doing any police work for the citizens? I believe everyone deserves due process, but what is taking APD so long to determine the employment status of this (and other) officers?

There are also several civilians on this list who are earning huge sums of money (2 to 3 times their hourly pay rate). How many times does APD have to be audited before someone puts a stop to this? Why does APD encourage their employees to work themselves to death? We don’t require more audits, we require APD leadership to start doing their jobs.

To add further insult to injury, sources within APD have stated that the APD SWAT team and K9 unit have resigned their positions to go back to uniform patrol. Can APD field a complete tactical team? It doesn’t appear that they can. This is on the heels of an entire Emergency Response Team (ERT) resigning their positions earlier this year. This should worry everyone in Albuquerque because if when there is another violent protest, or a barricaded gunman, or god forbid another incident where APD officers are gunned down, does APD have the ability to deploy a tactical team to get them, or innocent citizens, out of harm’s way?

APD has 23 cadets for the next academy. Normally they want 50 cadets to start, so it is unknown when the next academy will begin. Until the next academy graduates APD staffing will continue to dwindle.

From Chief Medina hiring a whole bunch of out of state “commanders” who may not even be sworn law enforcement officers in New Mexico, to at least one officer being counted that has possibly been on paid ADMIN leave for 7 months, to the tactical team resigning and civilians (and officers) being worked to death, you have to wonder who is in command at APD? It’s getting worse, not better. In the private sector people in charge would be getting fired, but in Kellers’ utopia, they just keep cashing our paychecks.

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