APD’s Public Information Officer Bullies Users on Social Media, City Council Questions His Bosses

Albuquerque –

On September 2nd, 2024, X, formerly known as Twitter, became a bully ground for social media users using the platform who were unprovoked in an attack. The bully was APD’s civilian Director of Public Relations, Gilbert Gallegos.

Around 8 PM on Labor Day, the official Albuquerque Police Department X account launched an unprovoked attack on some of ABQ RAW’s posts. The post highlighted by APD’s PIO was a two-day-old report about the triple shooting in the foothills. The PIO then attacked a story we posted about a homicide in the Southeast area command. The barrage of posts from the OFFICIAL Albuquerque Police Department account continued, targeting other users on the platform. Other “X” users started to push back against the APD account which seemed to send Gallegos into a rage-filled tirade, doubling down on his attacks. The Twitter “X” war occurred after normal business hours and on a federal holiday.

The attacks lasted for about an hour when an ABQ RAW staff member became concerned about APD’s Gallegos’ mental state. ABQ RAW called the City of Albuquerque’s Emergency Communications line to report his behavior and request a welfare check. We wanted ACS or APD to go check on him because the posts were escalating and he seemed to be becoming unhinged. It is unclear if anyone was sent to check on Gallegos, but after our call to dispatch, the postings from the official APD X account stopped immediately.

On September 4th, 2024, the Albuquerque City Council held their monthly public meeting, and a few councilors called out the behavior of APD’s Gallegos to the city’s CAO. This is the second time the City Council has called into question the behavior of social media use by Gallegos on an official APD social media account. The first time, then-Council President Pat Davis threatened to defund Gallegos’ position if the behavior continued. Gallegos makes over $117,000 a year in his position.

During last nights meeting, District 9 Councilor Renee Grout opened the topic by saying:

“I am going to talk about mean tweets. They’re not okay. And recently we had some from the PIO and we had this conversation a year ago, and, it’s serious,” said Councilor Grout.

She advised the Keller administration to take the higher road and expressed her sadness and disappointment that it happened again. She reminded the Administration that a year ago, then Council President Pat Davis, threatened to defund, Gilbert Gallegos’ position.

District 8 Councilor Dan Champine then asked Chief Administrative Officer Dr. Samantha Sengel, who oversees APD, if civilians are held to the same four core values listed on APD’s website.

“I believe that all of our employees within APD are held to the same standards,” said Dr. Sengel.

Over the years, Gallegos has repeatedly violated Section 1-02-4, Subsections III and IV of the APD Standard Operating Procedures manual, which state that speech impeding the performance of duties and speech that negatively impacts or tends to impact the Department’s ability to serve the public shall not be tolerated. https://abqraw.com/wp-content/uploads/attachments/1-02-social-media.pdf Police Officers have been fired for violating the social media policy a handful of times over less impactful social media posts.

The Civilian Police Oversight Commission has found Gallegos in violation of APD policies by also using his personal Twitter account as a work account and attacking members of the public with it. He often uses the terms “butthurt” and “trolls.” The Commission found he violated 1-1-4A, 1-2-4 A1, and 1-1-5 A1 policies of the Albuquerque Police Department’s S.O.P. In one previous instance, Gallegos attacked a homicide victim family member on X. It is unclear if Gallegos was ever disciplined for using the APD Public Information Office and the APD Department’s official account in this unprofessional manner.

Within APD’s disciplinary structure, Gallegos should have been fired, just like other officers, but he appears to be held to a different standard. He has gained the reputation of being “untouchable” and “teflon” because nothing sticks to him.

District 6 Councilor Nichole Rogers finished the discussion when she took up the same passion as former Councilor Pat Davis and wanted answers from the administration about this more recent incident. She asked APD representative acting Commander of IA Dodi Camacho about Gallegos pending or past discipline. Commander Camacho had no idea and looked to the administration table at the council meeting to save her from this line of questioning. City administrators quickly cut their mics and whispered something to the commander and City Attorney Lauren Keefe responded with a wonderfully timed defensive tactic:

 “We really can’t discuss personnel matters in this forum.”

Councilor Rogers doubled down and wanted more answers and accountability into APD’s shenanigans and grilled the Keller administration about the social media tweets.

“I don’t think we’re talking about fact checking and correcting the record. I’m thinking we’re talking about specifically tweets that are bullying, that are disrespectful, that are rude, that are condescending. And that’s what we’re talking about,” said Councilor Rogers.

We reached out to Councilor Rogers after the meeting on how she thought it went.

“We need leadership to hold employees accountable for the values of the department,” said Councilor Rogers. She went on to say she was not done with the issue and was determined to follow up with staff.

During our time reporting about this incident, APD’s Director of Communications Gilbert Gallegos has never appeared before City Council. As an appointed director, any council member could and most likely should request him to make an appearance at a council meeting to answer for his antics in person. For some reason, city leadership shields Gallegos from speaking to anyone about anything, allowing him to only prepare rehearsed memos and press releases.

It should be noted that other APD officers and civilian personnel have been harshly disciplined for social media posts, and some have lost their careers. This new batch of social media violations by Gallegos will most likely go through a secret “internal disciplinary” process. Similar to the internal investigtion and review process following APD Chief Harold Medina’s ‘non-preventable’ crash, which critically injured Mr. Todd Perchert and left him with permanent injuries. The results of the investigation will likely lead to Gallegos being required to buy lunch for the newly hired, hand-picked commanders for two weeks at Taco Bell.