OPINION: APD’s Real Time Crime Center Understaffed and No Officers to React to Data

As the individual responsible for rebuilding the Real Time Crime Center citizens need to know $45 Million in Crime Fighting Tech Can’t Replace Leadership and Human Presence in Albuquerque to prevent violent crime.

Albuquerque is one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the region. With 11,000 plus cameras 8,000 of which come from a partnership with Albuquerque Public Schools 37 square miles covered by ShotSpotter, and 250 plus automated license plate readers, our city has invested in what many would consider a state-of-the-art public safety infrastructure. Over the past four years our states governor and elected officials have stepped up with more than $45 million and it has been poured into the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) to harness this technology in the name of safety. And yet, crime remains stubbornly high. Neighborhoods don’t feel safer. Residents still wait too long for police to arrive if they arrive at all. The promise of real-time crime fighting has fallen flat. Why? Because technology doesn’t fight crime people do. Technology doesn’t make one feel safe, safety comes from others looking after one another.

The Albuquerque Police Field Services and RTCC are understaffed, overextended, and often left without the personnel to act on the very data it collects. Cameras record thefts, assaults and in some cases outright murder in real time, but no officer is available to respond. ShotSpotter detects gunfire but follow-up is slow or nonexistent. License plate readers flag stolen vehicles but with insufficient patrol units on the street, those leads are left to rot or die on the vine.

I can say this isn’t a technology failure. We proven it works so it has to be a leadership failure!

You can spend $45 million plus of tax payers money on the latest tools, but without a serious investment in human capital- security officer, police officers, crime analysts, investigators, ACS councilors, dispatchers it’s all just noise. And without competent, accountable leadership to prioritize staffing, coordinate responses, and make bold policy decisions, this city will continue to rely on machines to watch crime unfold instead of stopping it.

Yes; We’ve built a digital fortress, but left it largely unmanned. We’ve turned our Real Time Crime Center into a high priced dashboard with no one able to effect change. APD claims to attack crime with weekly meeting called “Duke City” where commanders are held accountable for area commands, with no consequences for results because they don’t have the human resources. They don’t discuss the lack of human resources on the streets but statistics, they don’t talk about building relationships within the metro area but how they are going it alone. In fact the only thing over the last 4 years that hasn’t changed in the meeting format is the name.

The current city leaders must stop boosting that tech alone is the answer to our public safety crisis. It isn’t! Not until we have leadership that treats public safety as a humanitarian mission not a sole police action for a data sheet or statistical value, not a gadget driven illusion. Without more people on the ground, quicker response times, and proactive patrols that deter crime before it happens.

ACS needs to have a clear mission, needs to be reestablished with broader authority or modified authority to effect change to impact results, it’s a simple observation, if ACS is so successful our citizens would be able to see the results, which they don’t and haven’t!

Simply we don’t need more cameras. We need more individuals with the authority to effect change. We don’t need more ShotSpotter alerts. We need faster, coordinated follow through. And we don’t need another multi-million dollar upgrade we need leaders who will use what we already have effectively and consistently and be bold to effect change!

Mark Torres
APD Real Time Crime Center 2021-2024
Deputy Commander/ Commander (Retired)

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