By: ABQRAW staff
Posted: 02/21/2024 @ 1:30PM
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Albuquerque – APD has released a video obtained from the TEWA lodge which shows one angle of Chief Medina crashing into an innocent driver while fleeing from an incident Saturday morning. Chief Medina released a statement to the public yesterday giving his point of view of what happened that day. The video produces more questions than answers about what actually happened. Medina admits he ran a red light to escape gunfire when he slammed into a gold Mustang going east bound on Central.
The Mustang had the right of way and was going through a green light when he was hit. Medina stated he will make sure he has one of his subordinates look into any possible violations he committed that day. Police watch dog groups point to this as a smart move to have a subordinate do the investigation instead of an outside agency that way the results will be more favorable for the entire administration.
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Watch the video HERE:
We have analyzed the above video and are concerned with the version of the crash Chief Medina provided. Medina does admit he didn’t have his police radio on in his truck which is a standard operating procedure violation.
Medina also admits he did not turn his body camera on which is violation. At no point did Medina have any emergency equipment on during or after the event which is installed in his truck which is another violation.
Medina does mention due to work, life, balance issues the Mayor has implemented officers are now able to bring their wives, girlfriends, or kids to work with them in their police cars if they want now to any police situations for fun together time.
In Chief Medina’s video he mentions that he went to check on the alleged victim who was shot at however the video provided by APD shows the alleged victim actually running to check on Medina after the crash but he notices it is an officer involved in the crash and he immediately runs away south on Alvarado never to be seen again.
We have numerous record requests into the city related to this incident. We will be following this story closely.
[…] Medina admitted he did not have his radio on at the time of this crash. Officers are expected to keep their radios on and tuned to the area command they are driving in as part of APD’s standard operating procedure. It remains unclear why APD’s Internal Affairs did not cite Medina for not having his radio on or if why his wife did not fill out a ride along form. We requested the records from APD to show when the Motorola radio in Chief Medina’s vehicle was actually activated, but the city has refused to produce these records. We know the technology exists in these radios because it was part of the new multi million dollar upgrade which encrypted police radios for public listening. A GPS monitoring system built into all the police radios know where they are at, at all times, when they were turned on, and when they are turned off. Those logs are kept on record somewhere but are most likely only used against officers who piss off supervisors or are targeted. It’s obvious these violations were ignored by investigators since someone decided they should only be applied to officers on patrol in fully marked police cars. Some leader somewhere within APD has decided that supervisors who drive around in city owned vehicles with civilian plates and no markings whatsoever should be exempt from SOP because they are special and can not be bugged by citizens who may recognize them if they were in a fully marked up vehicle. We also requested Chief Medinas ride along form for his wife but we were told no such document exists. This violation was most likely created in the APD SOP only to be used against patrol officers to beat their moral down. […]