On Friday May 9, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the City of Albuquerque filed a “Joint Motion For Termination” seeking U.S. District Court approval to terminate the federal consent decree known as the Court Approved Settlement Agreement (CASA) covering the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) since 2015. The joint motion asserts that the Federal Monitor has determined APD is in full compliance with the consent decree and that the case can be dismissed. The Federal Court Appointed Monitor James Ginger and the Intervenor Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association (APOA) concurred with the “Joint Motion To Terminate” and the dismissal of the case.
You can read the 22 “Joint Motion For Termination” at this link:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1399851/dl?inline
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division issued the following statement:
“This consent decree has run its course successfully. … We are proud to stand by the men and women of the Albuquerque Police Department and ask the court to terminate this consent decree. Albuquerque Police operate constitutionally. It is now appropriate to end federal oversight and return full control of local law enforcement to the city. The Albuquerque Police Department has made meaningful progress toward constitutional policing and a culture of accountability. This progress builds on nearly a decade of hard work and partnership with the community, laying a strong foundation for the future and opening the door to a new chapter. This chapter demands leadership that listens, a community that stays engaged, and a department committed to doing what is right, even when it is difficult, in service of a safer, more just Albuquerque for all.”
The link to read the statement is here:
In a statement, newly appointed U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Ryan Ellison, who was appointed by President Trump on April 18 , said this:
“[APD] has made tremendous progress toward constitutional policing and a culture of accountability. This progress builds on nearly a decade of hard work and partnership with the community, laying a strong foundation for the future and opening the door to a new chapter of local control of law enforcement. … The U.S. Attorney’s Office will stand shoulder to shoulder with the men and women of the APD to make Albuquerque a safer place to live, work, raise a family, and run a business.”
JOINT MOTION FOR TERMINATION
The CASA was filed on November 14, 2014. It contains 276 paragraphs containing police reforms overseen by a Federal District Judge and audited by Federal Court Approve Monitor James Ginger. The CASA was agreed to after an 18-month long DOJ investigation finding APD engaged in a pattern of “excessive use of force” and “deadly force” and finding a “culture of aggression” existed within APD.
The 22-page Joint Motion to Terminate highlights the history of the litigation including major reports of the federal monitor and reaching compliance levels. As alleged in the Joint Motion to Terminate, the stated purpose of the CASA was: “[To] ensure that [APD] delivers police services that comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and to further their mutual interests. …The provisions of [the CASA] Agreement are designed to ensure police integrity, protect officer safety, and prevent the use of excessive force, including unreasonable use of deadly force, by APD.”
Primarily, the CASA established requirements related to the use of force by APD officers. To achieve these goals, APD was required to “implement force policies, training, and accountability systems to ensure that force is used in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that any use of unreasonable force is identified and responded to appropriately.” In addition, APD was required to “ensure that officers use non-force techniques to effectively police, use force only when objectively reasonable under the circumstances, and de-escalate the use of force at the earliest possible moment.”
The Joint Motion for Termination states in part:
“[After 10 years] APD has become a self-assessing and self-correcting agency. These characteristics have enabled APD to demonstrate sustained and continuing improvement in constitutional policing. In the most critical area covered by the CASA—force— the data shows that APD uses force at a much lower rate than when this case began, and that the vast majority of force used meets constitutional standards. When it does not, APD has the systems and processes in place to ensure that the necessary review, training, and discipline take place.
The Motion to Terminate goes on to state in part:
“[APD has] vastly improved its use of force in a constitutional manner. … the City has shown its ability to conduct its own use of force investigations without outside assistance. … The City has achieved operational compliance with all of the requirements that measure use of force outcomes. … The City also achieved operational compliance of the reforms that help recruit, retain, train, and care for high-quality officers. Additionally, the City established systems for reliable, timely, and fair investigation of lower-level force, higher-level force, and misconduct and achieved operational compliance with paragraphs regarding application of discipline, including implementation of a disciplinary matrix. Finally, the City achieved operational compliance with paragraphs related to non-force issues such as citizen and community engagement, as well as paragraphs addressing officers’ response to especially vulnerable citizens through behavioral health training and specialized units.
The City and APD have devoted thousands of working hours and spent millions of dollars over the last 10 years to implement the CASA reforms. The Joint Motion to Terminate signifies that the DOJ is satisfied that APD has met its demands and has met all the requirements mandated by the CASA.
APD was forced to create entire management teams and Internal Affairs oversight divisions and rewrite use of force and deadly force policies. The city was required to implement police training in constitutional policing practices and de-escalation tactics to meet the 276 mandated reforms in the CASA. The city was also required to pay the Federal Independent Monitor and his monitoring team to oversee the progress of APD which cost the city taxpayers $13 million.
REACTION TO MOTION TO TERMINATE
Not at all surprising, Mayor Tim Keller and APD leadership are delighted with the filing of the Motion to Terminate seeking a dismissal of the case.
APD Chief Harold Medina said this:
“This is a victory for the men and women of the Albuquerque Police Department who have changed their culture. They are the ones that have put the most blood, sweat and tears into this. … I hope and I pray that the future leaders of this department continue to respect what was built and that we must always be looking to see how we could improve. … That sometimes in order to be able to improve, we must admit that we were wrong.
This is not the end of reform. Reform should always be reoccurring. We should always be looking how we’re going to get better. How are we going to improve communications with the community? How are we going to reduce use of force? How are we going to ensure that a bad incident does not repeat itself?””
Notwithstanding his delight over the dismissal of the case, APD Chief Harold Medina said the consent decree didn’t fix “the system in its entirety” referring to resource and continuum lapses in the state’s behavioral health system.
Unlike when the CASA was first entered, recent years have seen more people armed at the time they were killed by police. In some cases, those killed threatened suicide and told police to shoot them, even pointing cellphones and other objects at officers, as if they were guns, before being shot. Medina said this:
“I remember in 2013, 2012 … we had some horrible shootings … we had a lot of incidents that were just very tough for us to explain … I think there’s a vast change in what we’ve done and how we handle situations. I watch videos and I see the patience and the understanding of our officers, and it’s unbelievable how patient and understanding they are today compared to the past. We need places for people to get intervention early, for people to get help early, and it cannot rely on an officer being dispatched to deal with these individuals.”
Medina said he has seen change in his officers’ behavior in such situations and gives credit to the CASA. Medina said he believes the changes mandated by the CASA and implemented by the city will stand the test of time. Medina said this:
“There’s going to be some fine-tuning and some streamlining of the processes, but the fundamentals of this settlement agreement are what every department should strive for: constitutionally policing the community and holding people accountable and making sure force is only used when it has to be used. … So, I just want to make sure that we don’t start messaging that the intent is, ‘We’re going to go back to the way it was.’ That’s not the right message.”
Mayor Tim Keller for his part recognized the possibility of problems still appearing within the police department, but expressed optimism on how they would be dealt with in the future. Keller said this:
“If you look at the old footage of when this started and what we did to get here, no one would’ve believed we would have actually gotten to this place. … Will there be bad actors in the police department? That will also happen. The difference is that we will hold them accountable, and we will efficiently get the bad actors out of the department. … [T]he work itself, the reform, the self-improvement, the accountability, the transparency absolutely continues. Officers are still going to be held accountable.”
APD Superintendent of Police Eric Garcia said this:
“We’re still going to investigate officer misconduct, and we’re still going to investigate all uses of force.”
APD Police Union President Sean Willoughby, a constant critic of the DOJ Consent decree and of the reform effort, said the only benefit from the CASA was more emphasis on training, although he did not agree with the training nor the way it was handled. He blamed the consent decree on the city’s issues with crime and having more police shootings than before the reforms began. Willoughby said this:
“The DOJ can’t leave fast enough. This has been a rollercoaster of destruction.”
Commentary Note: The words spoken by Police Union President Sean Willoughby are pure political garbage and should be discarded as such. The union early on became an intervenor in the case, something the City failed to object to and should never had consented to. Willoughby was at the negotiating table when new use of force and deadly force policies were negotiated. It was the union that engaged in obstruction and delay tactics in the writing and implementation of the use of force and deadly force policies and the CASA reforms.
Willoughby spread the “big lies” that crime rates were up because of the consent decree and that cops were “handcuffed” and could not do their jobs. On April 27, 2021, it was widely reported by local news media that the Albuquerque Police Officers Association (APOA) launched a $70,000 political hit job ad campaign, which included 33 billboards, urging the community to speak out against the DOJ oversight and to discredit the DOJ mandated reforms saying the police reforms were preventing police officers from doing their jobs and combating crime.
Links to quoted or relied upon news sources are here:
https://www.abqjournal.com/2384284/apd-union-launches-campaign-against-doj-oversight.html
https://www.koat.com/article/as-murder-rate-climbs-apd-union-launches-campaign/36257496
“HORRIFICALLY PREDICTABLE”
Peter Cubra, a now retired civil rights attorney who defended people with disabilities in the reform effort for years, called the DOJ’s decision “horrifically predictable.” Cubra was quick to point out the Motion to Terminate has “zero signature lines” of any DOJ members on the case prior to 2025, including Deputy Chief Paul Killebrew, with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who worked years on the reform effort.
Cubra believed the termination request was ultimately motivated by the Trump administration, which, according to The Washington Post, has shaken up the division and reassigned DOJ Civil Rights staffers overseeing a variety of cases, including police brutality. The national DOJ office in Washington, DC did not respond to questions on the matter. Cubra said this:
“[APD’s] practice of shooting people when they should not is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. … And the only thing that might influence that would be new litigation brought by people who don’t work for the government and a courageous judge.”
As APD has come closer to the dismissal of the case, Cubra and other advocacy groups, including the New Mexico Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and APD Forward have decried spikes in APD police shootings, particularly those involving people in the grips of a behavioral health crisis. APD Forward includes 19 organizations who became affiliated with each other to reform APD and implement the DOJ consent decree terms and reforms.
Data from 2022 shows that, despite the increase, officers used force in less than 1% of behavioral health and suicide calls, and 3% of those calls violated policy. Daniel Williams with the ACLU of New Mexico pointed out a disconnect between APDs compliance with the DOJ, and the experience on city streets. Williams said this:
“We’ve seen the last couple of years APD really starting to check those boxes and get into technical compliance with the CASA. … Unfortunately, New Mexico still leads the nation in terms of per capita people killed by police and APD does account for a big part of that.”
The links to quoted or relied upon news sources are here:
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/apd-files-joint-motion-with-doj-to-end-oversight/
21ST INDEPENDENT MONITORS REPORT
On April 14, 2025, federal court appointed Independent Monitor James D. Ginger issued his sixty page 21st Independent Monitor’s Report (IMR) on the three compliance levels the APD has achieved under the CASA. The report covers the compliance efforts made by APD during the 21st reporting period, of August 1, 2024, through January 31, 2025.
Federal Monitor James Ginger’s 21st report found that the city of Albuquerque was at 99% operational compliance, which tracks whether officers follow policies and are corrected when they don’t.
Ginger found in his 21st report that the only remaining requirements to achieve 100% operational compliance is the Civilian Police Oversight Agency (CPOA), which investigates civilian complaints against officers and is not under APD’s control. Ginger found the timeliness of investigations by the CPOA was seriously deficient. However, Ginger reported that the CPOA was making progress toward compliance and had developed a “triage protocol” to prioritize cases that were “more likely to have sustained findings.”
Ginger’s 21st report also found APD recorded a 45% drop in annual use-of-force incidents since 2020. Although officers shot, or shot at, a record number of people in recent years, almost all of which were found in policy.
According to the Monitors Executive Summary, the City and APD have completed the majority of the requirements established by the CASA. At the end of the reporting period, APD’s compliance levels are as follows:
- Primary Compliance 100%
- Secondary Compliance 100%
- Operational Compliance 99%
For purposes of the APD monitoring process, there are 3 “compliance” levels: Primary Compliance, Secondary Compliance , and Operational Compliance. The 3 Compliance Levels are defined in the Monitors Reports as follows: .
PRIMARY COMPLIANCE
Primary compliance is the “policy” part of compliance. To attain primary compliance, APD must have in place operational policies and procedures designed to guide officers, supervisors, and managers in the performance of the tasks outlined in the CASA. As a matter of course, the policies must be reflective of the requirements of the CASA, must comply with national standards for effective policing policy, and must demonstrate trainable and evaluable policy components.
SECONDARY COMPLIANCE
Secondary compliance is attained by providing acceptable training related to supervisory, managerial, and executive practices designed to (and effective in) implementing the policy as written, e.g., sergeants routinely enforce the policies among field personnel and are held accountable by managerial and executive levels of the department for doing so. By definition, there should be operational artifacts such as reports, disciplinary records, remands to retraining, follow-up, and even revisions to policies if necessary, indicating that the policies developed in the first stage of compliance are known to, followed by, and important to supervisory and managerial levels of the department.
OPERATIONAL COMPLIANCE
Operational compliance is attained at the point that the adherence to policies is apparent in the day-to-day operation of the agency, e.g., line personnel are routinely held accountable for compliance, not by the monitoring staff, but by their sergeants, and sergeants are routinely held accountable for compliance by their lieutenants and command staff. In other words, the APD “owns” and enforces its policies.
https://www.cabq.gov/police/documents/doc-1095-imr-21-april-2025.pdf
The next hearing on Ginger’s 21st Monitors report is scheduled for May 15 in front of the CASA assigned U.S. District Judge James Browning. It is unclear if he will take up the motion to dismiss the CASA.
INVESTIGATION, LAWSUIT AND COURT APPROVED SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
The DOJ began investigating excessive force by APD in November 2012 after the Albuquerque City Council and police oversight advocates requested the federal government to investigate APD’s officers’ use of force and deadly force. An 18-month long investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that the Albuquerque Police Department engaged in a pattern of “excessive use of force” and “deadly force”, especially when dealing with the mentally ill. The DOJ investigation found a “culture of aggression” existed within APD. Department of Justice investigators reviewed 20 fatal shootings by APD between 2009 and 2013 and found that in the majority of cases the level of force used was not justified because the person killed did not present a threat or danger to police officers or the public and were more of a danger to themselves.
The lawsuit was filed in 2014 after the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that APD had engaged in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force and deadly force in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was on November 14, 2014, the City of Albuquerque, the APD and DOJ entered into a stipulated Court Approved Settlement Agreement (CASA).
The CASA contains 276 paragraphs that mandate police reforms, the appointment of a Federal Monitor and the filing of Independent Monitor’s reports (IMRs) on APD’s compliance with the reforms. The ultimate goal of the settlement was to implement constitutional policing practices, and it was aimed at making sure police officers follow policy and do not use excessive force and deadly force.
The link to the 118-page CASA is here:
https://documents.cabq.gov/justice-department/settlement-agreement.pdf
It was the Republican Mayor Richard Berry Administration who negotiated the terms and conditions of the CASA in 2013. They did so by hiring two out of state negotiators to the tune of $1 Million dollars. The outside contractors had little to no understanding of APD nor of Albuquerque as a community and its diverse culture. The net result was a one-sided agreement in favor of the DOJ as the Bery Administration simply agreed to all the demands of the DOJ and rolled over. An agreement that was supposed to be implemented in 4 years and then dismissed lasted over 10 years. For the last 7 years the Keller Administration has been saddled with the CASA and implementing the reforms.
HIGH PROFILE KILLINGS
Two very high-profile shootings involving the mentally ill that occurred also contributed to Berry Administration rushing into and agreeing to all the terms of the CASA.
Kenneth Ellis was and Iraq War Veteran suffering from PTSD who was armed with a handgun that he pointed to his head and threatened to commit suicide, while he was also on his cell phone with his mother, and when he was confronted by APD. The officers shot and killed him when he took one step forward to them. A jury found that Ellis was more of a threat to himself and not police and it resulted in an $8 million judgment against the city.
James Boyd was a homeless man camping illegally in the Sandia foothills who was confronted by dozens of APD officers who attempted to arrest him and he was shot and killed by SWAT. Mayor Richard Berry called the shooting a “game changer.” The shooting of Boyd led to protests that saw crowds overturning cars as tear gas wafted in the streets and another Judgement against the City for $5 million. The two SWAT officers who killed Boyd were charged with murder and their trial resulted in a hung jury and the charges were dismissed.
ROCKY HISTORY OF IMPLEMENTATION OF REFORMS
The implementation of the CASA reforms has been very difficult at times over the past 10 years. Severe setbacks were found by the monitor. Two such times were when the federal monitor reported APD was on the brink of “catastrophic failure” and when APD failed to investigate 667 Use of Force cases.
ON THE BRINK OF A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE
October 6, 2020, Federal Monitor Ginger told Federal Judge James Browning, who oversees the case, this in open court:
“We are on the brink of a catastrophic failure at APD. … [The department] has failed miserably in its ability to police itself. … If this were simply a question of leadership, I would be less concerned. But it’s not. It’s a question of leadership. It’s a question of command. It’s a question of supervision. And it’s a question of performance on the street. So as a monitor with significant amount of experience – I’ve been doing this since the ’90s – I would have to be candid with the Court and say we’re in more trouble here right now today than I’ve ever seen.”
In his 12th Federal Monitors Report filed with the Court on November 2, 2020 and covering the period of February 1, 2020 to July 31, 2020, Independent Monitor James Ginger wrote a scathing condemnation of APD’s ability to police itself and hold officers accountable when they improperly used force. Ginger reported:
“[The federal monitor] identified strong under currents of Counter-CASA effects in some critical units on APD’s critical path related to CASA compliance. These include supervision at the field level; mid-level command in both operational and administrative functions, [including] patrol operations, internal affairs practices, disciplinary practices, training, and force review). Supervision, [the] sergeants and lieutenants, and mid-level command, [the commanders] remain one of the most critical weak links in APD’s compliance efforts.”
During this reporting period, the monitoring team often found in its reviews of management and oversight practices, a near myopathy at APD when it comes to assessing actions in the field against the requirements of APD policy and the CASA. Supervisors and command level personnel have a deleterious tendency to ignore the requirements of policy and training, and at times to even support processes to hide or circumvent internal systems designed to ensure compliance to established policy.
…
Many of the instances of non-compliance seen in the field are a matter of “will not,” instead of “cannot”! The Monitor reports he see actions that transcend innocent errors and instead speak to issues of cultural norms yet to be addressed and changed by APD leadership.”
Supervision, which includes Lieutenants and Sergeants in the union, needs to leave behind its dark traits of myopia, passive resistance, and outright support for, and implementation of, counter-CASA processes.”
…
Most importantly, line officers need to engage in actions as designed by policy, law, and best practice, not past customs.
FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE 667 POLICE OFFICER OF USE OF FORCE CASES
On February 26, 2021 the External Force Investigation Team (EFIT) was created by an agreed court order after the Federal Monitor found that APD intentionally did not investigate 667 Police Officer of Use of Force cases. The Court Order was agreed to by the City and APD after the Department of Justice made it know it was prepared to seek “Contempt of Court” for willful violation of the CASA and seek sanctions against the city and APD.
The EFIT is an outside team of experienced law enforcement investigators on contract with the city that was responsible for training APD’s Internal Affairs Force Division (IAFD) on how to properly investigate use-of-force cases. Independent Monitor James Ginger was highly critical of APD creating a backlog of 667 Use of Force Cases saying it had “failed miserably in its ability to police itself.” Another function of EFIT was to clear the backlog of cases.
In July 2021, the EFIT began training the Internal Affairs Force Division to investigate use-of-force cases, making sure they meet deadlines and follow procedures. The EFIT team has since turned investigations back over to APD, paving the way for it to reach full compliance.
REFORMS ACHIEVED UNDER THE CASA
On November 16, 2024, it was a full 10 years that expired since the city agreed to the CASA with the DOJ. It was originally agreed that implementation of all the settlement terms would be completed within 4 years. Because of delay and obstruction tactics by APD management and the police officers’ union which was found by the Federal Monitor it has taken another 5 years to get the job done.
After over 10 full years, the federal oversight and the CASA have produced results. Reforms achieved under the CASA can be identified and are as follows:
- New “use of force” and “use of deadly force” policies have been written, implemented and all APD sworn have received training on the policies.
- All sworn police officers have received crisis management intervention training.
- APD has created a “Use of Force Review Board” that oversees all internal affairs investigations of use of force and deadly force.
- The Internal Affairs Unit has been divided into two sections, one dealing with general complaints and the other dealing with use of force incidents.
- Sweeping changes ranging from APD’s SWAT team protocols, to banning choke-holds, to auditing the use of every Taser carried by officers and re-writing and implementation of new use of force and deadly force policies have been completed.
- “Constitutional policing” practices and methods, and mandatory crisis intervention techniques an de-escalation tactics with the mentally ill have been implemented at the APD police academy with all sworn police also receiving the training.
- APD has adopted a new system to hold officers and supervisors accountable for all use of force incidents with personnel procedures implemented detailing how use of force cases are investigated.
- APD has revised and updated its policies on the mandatory use of lapel cameras by all sworn police officers.
- The Repeat Offenders Project, known as ROP, has been abolished.
- Civilian Police Oversight Agency has been created, funded, fully staffed and a director was hired.
- The Community Policing Counsels (CPCs) have been created in all area commands.
- The Mental Health Advisory Committee has been implemented.
- The External Force Investigation Team (EFIT) was created and is training the Internal Affairs Force Division on how to investigate use-of-force cases, making sure they meet deadlines and follow procedures.
- Millions have been spent each year on new programs and training of new cadets and police officers on constitutional policing practices.
- APD officers are routinely found using less force than they were before and well documented use of force investigations are now being produced in a timely manner.
- APD has assumed the self-monitoring of at least 25% of the CASA reforms and is likely capable of assuming more.
- The APD Compliance Bureau has been fully operational and staffed with many positions created dealing directly with all the reform efforts and all the duties and responsibilities that come with self-assessment.
- APD has attained a 100% Primary Compliance rate, a 100% Secondary Compliance rate and a 99% Operational Compliance rate.
APD BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION SCANDAL
It was on Friday January 19, 2024 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed search warrants and raided the homes of 3 Albuquerque Police officers and the home and law offices of prominent DWI criminal defense attorney Thomas Clear, III and his investigator Ricardo “Rick” Mendez. All those targeted with a search warrant are accused of being involved in a bribery and conspiracy scheme to accept bribes and dismiss DWI cases.
Over the last year and four months, the investigation has evolved into the single largest law enforcement corruption case in the city’s history involving APD, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and the New Mexico State Police with no end in sight.
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman has had to dismiss more than 272 DWI cases involving law enforcement officers linked to the federal case and due to police officer credibility being called into question in the cases where they made the DWI arrests.
More than a year into their investigation, the FBI continues to seek out those who participated in the near 30-year criminal enterprise in which law enforcement officers coordinated with defense attorney Thomas Clear, III and his investigator Ricardo “Rick” Mendez to get drunken driving cases thrown out of court by paying bribes to arresting officers.
A total of nineteen (19) law enforcement officers have resigned, retired, been terminated or federally charged or indicted since the FBI executed five searches in January 2024 at three APD officers’ residences, the home of a private investigator, and the law office of prominent DWI attorney Thomas Clear III. Fifteen APD Officers, three Bernalillo County Sherriff Officers and one New Mexico State Police Sergeant thus far have been implicated in the bribery racketeering enterprise.
Five APD officers and one Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office Deputy have plead guilty to taking bribes. Former DWI Criminal defense attorney Thomas Clear III and his investigator Ricardo “Rick” Mendez have also plead guilty as charged to paying bribes to law enforcement to get their client’s DWI cases get dismissed. Clear has been disbarred from the practice of law by the New Mexico Supreme Court and the Federal Court.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The “Motion To Terminate” has been expected for some time and should not come as any surprise. The truth is APD was expected to be found in compliance after the 19th Federal Monitors report came out saying APD fell 2% short of being in full Operational Compliance and at 100% Primary and Secondary Compliance.
What called into question if APD would finally reach compliance and the case dismissed, at least in the public’s mind, was the DOJ and the FBI investigation into allegations that DWI officers took bribes to miss court dates which led to hundreds of pending DWI cases being dismissed by the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office.
It turns out that the biggest corruption scandal in the history of APD did not even merit an acknowledgement nor a mention by the Federal Monitor in his 19th, 20th or 21st monitor’s reports. What is truly down right pathetic is that for the past 10 years APD management and the entire APD department was supposed to be the under the watchful eye of the Department of Justice, the Federal Court and a Federal Monitor, yet the bribery and conspiracy scandal to dismiss DWI cases ostensibly went totally undetected by the Federal Monitor over the last 10 years during which it occurred.
Under Secondary Compliance, the Federal Monitor and his so-called team of experts were required to review supervisory, managerial and executive practices and the enforcement of policies among field personnel and how they were held accountable by management and executive levels for wrongdoing. Accepting bribes to get cases dismissed has never been a policy of APD. No doubt the monitor will argue it was not his job to ferret out scandal, nefarious or illegal conduct of APD officers other than use of force and deadly force, but that sure damn well was the responsibility of the Department of Justice.
Despite all that has been accomplished by the CASA as noted above, the public perception is that the DOJ reform process really has not accomplished much other than making the Federal Monitor a wealthy man.
Excessive use of force and deadly by APD is what brought the Department of Justice to this City in the first place and damaged APD’s reputation to a great extent. The reforms were an attempt to restore public confidence in APD to an extent.
There is absolutely no doubt that APD’s reputation has been trashed to a major extent by APD’s history of excessive use of force and deadly force as well by the corruption, bribery and DWI dismissal scandal. APD is viewed by many as nothing more than a bastion of “violent, dirty and corrupt cops” who have brought dishonor to their department and to the department’s professed values of “Pride, Integrity, Fairness and Respect”.
There is little doubt that the killings of civilians and the bribery corruption scandal has shaken the public’s faith in our criminal justice system and APD to its core. The only way that any semblance of faith can be restored and for people to begin trusting APD again is if all the police officers involved in corruption and wrongful death actions are held accountable. That will only happen when there is aggressive prosecutions and convictions, the police officers are terminated, and they lose their law enforcement certification.
REVERTING BACK TO OLD WAYS OF DOING BUSINESS BIGGEST DANGER
The announcement that APD, after almost 10 years, is now in full compliance with the Court Approved Settlement Agreement (CASA) is long overdue and a major milestone for the beleaguered department plagued by scandal and corruption.
The implementation of all the reforms took over twice as long as was originally agreed. It required the expenditure of millions of dollars and oversight by an outside independent monitor.
The Federal Monitor and his team have been paid upwards of $13 Million for their services and reports. The city has also spent over $40 to implement the reforms.
The biggest risk is that APD leadership and management will become lazy or complacent as it has been in the past and allow APD rank and file to fall back into the old ways, habits and attitudes that created the “culture of aggression” in the first place.