ABQ police recent history deserves thorough review

By and large, the Albuquerque Police Department has a high volume of hard working and honorable men and women within their ranks. New Mexico’s largest city has a crime rate that keeps APD busy and the majority of Albuquerque officers serve with dignity and honor.

That being said, it’s an inconvenient fact that APD has been scandal-ridden for years.

Mayor Martin Chavez assured the city of Albuquerque that “heads would roll” after the evidence room scandal of 2005, yet APD has been plagued with a long list of incidents that include murder, assault and rape. With the mayoral race underway, will any candidate step up and address this issue?

A cursory search in Google for “Albuquerque police officer accused” brings up a long list of incidents that have seemingly been forgotten, or not categorically addressed, by the local media, the Albuquerque City Council or the mayor.

Below is a partial list of recent incidents involving APD criminal activity, negligence and questionable behavior in that last few years:

– In January of this year, APD paid $685,000 for failure to respond to five 911 calls which resulted in the murder-suicide of a fighting couple.

– APD Gang Unit Detective Joe Baca has been accused of stealing $2,500 from evidence obtained in an arrest in 2007. Baca was fired for the incident and the trial is ongoing.

– In October 2008, Ana Bruciaga was arrested and fired for discharging her weapon after a fight with her boyfriend.

– In April 2008, Sgt Andrew Gallegos ran over Vera Haskell at Sidewinders Bar while off duty. After viewing surveillance video of the incident, Gallegos’ police colleagues joked that it looked like him. Gallegos stated that he went to a party that night and “blacked out.” The case against Gallegos has been dismissed.

– In May 2008, APD Officer Daniel Guzman attacked a local news cameraman. The incident was caught on tape and the officer was fired. Guzman has since been hired by the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Department.

– In October of 2007, Tera Chavez was found dead in her Valencia County home of a gunshot wound to the head. She was the wife of APD officer Levi Chavez and his department-issued hand gun was found to be the weapon that inflicted the shot. Valencia County investigators changed the cause of death from suicide to homicide and named her husband as a “person of interest.” APD officers are alleged to have entered the crime scene and contaminated and extracted evidence. A lawsuit filed by the victim’s family (pdf) states that officer Chavez changed his wife’s life insurance policy to include a pay-out clause for suicide which became active weeks before her death. Levi Chavez is the nephew of Sheriff Robert Chavez of Santa Rosa and has been paid $63,000 while on paid administrative leave.

– Officer David Maes stands accused of the 2007 rape a woman who was in his custody. The officer had admitted on his recruitment application to illegal activity involving “theft, vandalism, bribery and drug use.” Maes had already received four reprimands within the department before the incident.

– From 2001 to 2006 several women went missing in the Albuquerque area without notice or alarm by APD. It was recently found that a serial killer was loose on the streets of Albuquerque during that time and that the perpetrator buried his victims in a mass grave on the West Mesa.

– During the 2005 mayoral election, APD was embroiled in an evidence room scandal which saw the resignation of APD Chief Gilbert Gallegos. Accusations arose of ongoing theft, evidence contamination and whistle-blower intimidation. A city investigation found those accusations to be true but the state attorney general at the time, Patricia Madrid, stated, “Serious systemic problems in the operation of the evidence room make a successful prosecution virtually impossible.”

– At the time of the evidence room scandal, Mayor Chavez assured Albuquerque that new APD chief Ray Schultz’s team was going to clean up the situation. Schultz, however, retained the deputy chief who was the main target in the investigation.

Even if high-profile firings would have been made, it’s quite obvious that APD is in need of systematic change and not necessarily sacrificial lambs.

Mayor Chavez and APD have been dedicated to beefing up the number of officers on the streets in the last couple of years, but are they sacrificing quality in their quest to meet quotas? A recent KRQE news report stated:

Police Detective Oscar Medrano, who ran background checks on APD recruits, swore under oath that he felt pressure from Mayor Martin Chavez’s office to push candidates through and “soften standards.”

Medrano says the mayor’s office was flooding him with applications, pushing 1,000 officers for what he called, “political reasons.”

This is a serious accusation taken under oath within a culture where inner-department policies and politics are rarely and grudgingly divulged to the public.

There’s been no shortage of press conferences with Mayor Chavez backed by a sea of Albuquerque’s finest, so at what point does the mayor become accountable for the long list of department black eyes that have happened on his watch?

This is indeed a valid campaign issue and one that needs to be addressed for the integrity of our city as well as the reputation of the hundreds of upstanding officers who do our community a great justice with their service.

An approach that needs to be on the table is one that includes raising the education requirements for recruits as well as the pay for our officers.

I’m willing to bet Albuquerque would favor police pay raises over multi-million dollar sports stadiums and trolly cars any day.

Mayor Chavez, as well as those seeking the city’s highest office, owe it to the Albuquerque community to address this issue in their campaigns.

Benito Aragon, a former NMI reporter/blogger, is the founder of Local Dialogue.