In a New Year’s Eve news release, Mayor Tim Keller announced his appointment of APD Deputy Chief Cecily Barker as Interim APD Chief. Mayor Keller made the interim appointment as the city is expected to conduct a nationwide search for a permanent replacement.

Interim Chief Barker’s appointment came the very day after former APD Chief Harold Medina officially retired and left his office downtown at the main APD headquarters. On December 30, Medina and his wife were escorted to their car by Mayor Keller.  A “celebratory retirement escort” of  APD vehicles and motorcycles with emergency lights on that disrupted traffic then escorted the Medina’s all the way to their home in Corrales.

BIOGRAPHY OF INTERIM CHIEF CECILY BARKER

Cecily Barker was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After attending college out of state. Interim Chief Barker has an associate degree in criminal justice and a bachelor’s degree in justice administration. She is also a graduate from the Major Cities Chiefs Association Police Executive Leadership Institute and the Police Executive Training Program.

After attending college, Cecily Barker  returned to Albuquerque and joined the Albuquerque Police Department in 2004.  She is a 21 year veteran of APD who has rose through the ranks during her career at APD.

After graduating from the police academy, Barker served in the Field Services Bureau from 2004-2012. During that time, she held  collateral duties of Gang Suppression Officer, Crisis Intervention Officer and Field Training Officer.

Baker was promoted to Sergeant in 2012 where she served in the Field Services Bureau and later in the Violent Crimes Division as the FASTT, Missing Person and Cold Case Sergeant.

Baker was promoted to Lieutenant in 2017. As a Lieutenant, Cecily Barker served in the Juvenile/Property Crime Division and the Criminalistics Division.

Cecily Barker was promoted to Commander in 2020 and served as the Northwest Area Commander and later as the Chief of Staff.

In 2021, Cecily Barker was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Investigative Bureau where she lead the Criminal Investigations Division, Investigative Services Division and the Scientific Evidence Division.

In October of 2023, Deputy Chief Barker took over the Field Services Bureau where she currently oversees the departments 6 Area Commands.

As Interim Chief  Barker will oversee a police department that employs 1,880 full time employees which includes more than 950 sworn police officers and that has an annual approved budget of $271.5 million dollars. APD employs upwards of 20% of all city hall employees and has the largest budget of all the 27 departments.

The link to review APD’s 2026 approved budget is here:

Click to access fy26-approved-final.pdf

OTHER KELLER APPOINTMENTS  MADE

The Albuquerque  City Charter requires that the Mayor’s  selection and nominations of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), City Attorney, City Clerk and APD Chief and Chief of the Fire and Rescue Department all be submitted to the Albuquerque City Council for final approval.

Mayor Keller named others to a few  key positions. Keller reappointed Emily Jaramillo to serve as Chief of Albuquerque Fire Rescue.  Lauren Keefe has been  renamed interim City Attorney, and City Clerk Ethan Watson was  renamed as interim city clerk.

Mayor Keller said this of his appointments:

“We are all deeply grateful to the people who choose to serve our community and show up for Albuquerque every day. … As we move through a period of transition, we’re focused on lifting up the next wave of leaders who are ready to carry this work forward so our neighborhoods feel secure, and Albuquerque continues to move ahead. The future of City leadership is already taking shape.”

Links to quoted or relied upon news sources are here:

https://www.abqjournal.com/news/new-year-new-chief-for-albuquerque-police/2952497

https://www.koat.com/article/albuquerque-cecily-barker-police-chief-interim/69896180

https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/albuquerque-gets-new-interim-police-chief-as-top-leaders-change/

https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/albuquerque-mayor-names-interim-police-chief/

NATIONAL SEARCH FOR NEW CHIEF

Mayor Keller has said he will announce his future plans for APD’s new leadership after he is sworn in on January 1 to his third 4 year term as Mayor.  APD has said it is looking for a chief who is “an experienced crime-fighter, has leadership experience, has a working knowledge of the Albuquerque community and is committed to maintaining reforms and trust in the department.”

Mayor Keller must now find a person who will be his third APD Chief. The process could take months. Mayor Keller said this about the process of selecting a new chief:

“You either early on, find somebody and you really want to go with, and then it goes fast. Let’s say three months. … Or you’ve got four or five people that you like, and so you really got to vet them and interview them and get lots of input. Then it pushes it out to, like, nine months.”

Mayor Keller said the long process will be all an effort to find someone who “checks every box.” That includes understanding Albuquerque and the challenges the city faces. The main priority, however, is keeping crime on a downward trend. Keller said this:

“[APD Chief Medina] started that process [of keeping crime on a downward trend] , and it has been achieved through technology, through the use of civilians, and through much stronger investigative work. So we want the new chief to be able to build on those, but also come in with some new ideas. … We know we got to look around. … It could be national, in a sense of from another city, but maybe it’s also local. You know, maybe there’s state police or someone from Las Cruces.”

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

Mayor Tim Keller’s appointment of Cecily Barker as APD Interim Chief comes as absolutely no surprise to APD watchers and city hall insiders. Her appointment was 100% expected. Former APD Chief Harold Medina advocated for one of his appointed Deputy Chief’s to take his place saying “I hope that I left a strong bench for mayor to look at and choose.”

Confidential sources have confirmed that former APD Chief Harold  Medina has been grooming Deputy Chief Cecily Barker to be his replacement as Chief for some time. The same sources have said that Mayor Keller has been “champing at the bit” to appoint the first female APD Chief in the city’s history as he has done with the appointment of  Fire Chief Emily Jaramillo.

MEDINA STILL ON PAYROLL

Confidential sources are saying that former APD Chief Harold Medina will still be on the city payroll through August 2026 to allow him to continue to draw his salary and to exhaust all of his accumulated annual leave and sick leave. The practice of allowing retirees to be paid out their accumulated annual and sick leave is a very common practice and is allowed by the city personnel rules and regulations. Retiring employees are carried on city hall books on what is referred to as the “early retirement fund”.  A retiring employee is allowed to draw a salary until annual and sick leave is exhausted or be paid a single lump sum payment for the annual and sick leave. Once the leave is accrued, it is a vested property right and must be paid in full by the city. The biggest advantage to continuing on city payroll is that it applies to an employee’s “high three” years for purposes of calculating full retirement pay.

BARKER HAS NOT SAID IF SHE WILL APPLY

It has not been reported if Interim Chief Cecily Barker will apply to be permanent Chief, but it is more likely than not she will apply. Such a scenario has happened before. Mayor Keller proclaims there will be a national search for a new chief, which is identical to what he said when he fired former APD Chief Geier and eventually appointed APD Chief Harold Medina, who Keller had appointed Interim Chief. The selection process used by Keller that ultimately resulted in the appointment of Harold Medina was considered by many a politcal sham.  Once Medina applied to be appointed Chief, it was a forgone conclusion that Keller would appoint him Chief. The blunt reality is that APD sworn police and in particular the APD Union will resist anyone from outside of APD.

MEDINA’S INFLUENCE OVER MAYOR TIM KELLER

The continuing influence of APD Chief Harold Medina over Mayor Tim Keller cannot be overemphasized.  After all, Keller said “[Chief Medina is] arguably the most important person right now in these times in our city” after Medina ran a red light and caused a crash totaling both vehicles and seriously injuring another driver.  A personal injury lawsuit is still pending against Medina and the City over the car crash. Keller refused calls for Medina’s resignation over the car crash Medina caused.

Although APD Chief Harold Medina is now officially retired, Mayor Keller could appoint Medina  to chair the national search committee for his replacement and even pay him a “consulting fee” for his help in finding a replacement which something many are speculating will happen.

APD NEEDS COMPLETELY NEW LEADERSHIP AND REORGANIZATION

Simply put, APD is a train wreck. It is  top heavy with mid-management and plagued by a DWI dismissal scandal. Keller needs to appoint a new chief and not a Medina loyalist or crony.  Mayor Keller needs to  replace the entire command staff and completely reorganize the department for a new generation of leadership. APD cannot deal with the city’s high crime rates because APD’s sworn personnel is at 950.  As it stands, there are only 350 out of 950  sworn police assigned to the six area commands, broken down into 3 shifts and patrolling the streets responding the thousands of calls for service.

If the entire command staff that Chief Medina has put in place over the last 5 years is not replaced, including all the Deputy Chiefs, there is little to no chance APD will change. APD will revert back to the old ways that brought on the Department of Justice (DOJ)  consent decree that lasted for 10 years with the city paying millions of taxpayer dollars to institute constitutional policing practices.

Hope springs eternal that Mayor Tim Keller will in fact do a national search for a new APD Chief and that the search is not a political sham to replace Harold Medina and not simply meant  to appoint a Medina crony who will continue contact with him and do his bidding.