Chief Medina’s Crash has been Found NON Preventable by his Subordinates

Albuquerque – During tonight’s City Council meeting, Chief Administrative Officer Dr. Samantha Sengel and Superintendent of Police Reform Officer Eric Garcia provided an update to the investigation into the crash involving Chief Medina.

On his way to a press conference on Saturday, February 17, 2024 Chief Medina fled from gunfire out of fear for his wife’s life and slammed into a driver who was on his way to show off his classic ’66 Mustang at a car meetup.

As is typical after most crashes involving APD officers, a supervisor goes to the scene to determine if additional investigation is necessary. Since the February crash involved the Chief of Police, APD’s own traffic investigation team were called to the scene. This team consists of sworn officers and civilians who all work for Chief Medina. This team was chosen to investigate by Medina instead of immediately asking for an independent outside investigation.

After a review of the on-scene crash investigation, a crash review board comprised of Sworn APD officers and city civilian staff concluded that the February 17 crash was non-preventable. This means the review team decided that Chief Medina could not have avoided the crash and it was meant to happen as it did. As is department policy after all serious crashes, the crash review board’s investigative file was forwarded to the District Attorney’s office. It is unknown what the results of the DA’s investigation is or if its still being reviewed.

City administrators stated during Wednesday’s regular council meeting that they have now asked State Police to review the case but they did not say if they formally asked NMSP to review it or if they were just hoping NMSP were watching the council meeting and would be intrigued to look into the crash.

It would be difficult for NMSP or any other law enforcement entity to do an investigation after the fact because the scene has already been processed by APD.

City administrators also promised they are completing a thorough Internal Affairs investigation into the crash incident to determine whether Chief followed APD policies and procedures that day. The city hopes to instill and ensure transparency and accountability. They are doing this by making sure their own department staff looks very hard at this situation. Eric Garcia a 34 year sworn officer who is the hand picked Superintendent of Police will formally request that the Internal Monitor, former Judge Victor Valdez(also hand picked), will then review the entire investigation, in addition to asking the DOJ independent monitor, Dr. James Ginger(makes $100k a month with no end in sight), to evaluate the IA casework as part of the apparent eternal CASA process.

“Our processes in Internal Affairs are consistent for every level of officer in the department, including our Chief of Police,” said Superintendent Eric Garcia during tonight’s council meeting. “To ensure complete transparency, we are adding multiple layers of review above and beyond what is required in similar situations.”

Immediately after the crash, Chief Medina was said to have taken a drug and alcohol test, as is required under City policy. Once the test was found to be negative of any substances Chief Medina voluntarily released the results of his clean test results, which were negative.

“We know how important transparency is with our police department, which is why we’re inviting multiple levels of outside review on top of the already extensive investigation,” said CAO Samantha Sengel.

Councilor Louie Sanchez had a measure on tonight’s agenda to vote no confidence in Chief Medina but the council voted to defer it for two weeks.  Councilor Sanchez’s measure mentioned the DWI scandal, a cadet getting preferential treatment because his dad is Commander George Vega, a murder of a cadet, and a few other scandals.