Does Keller believe criminals deserve your stuff?

By Dan Klein

-- After over three years of crime-fighting failure, I can only come to two conclusions: Keller and Medina are incompetent or they believe criminals deserve to have your life and property.

-- Keller and Medina are blaming Albuquerque's crime crisis on the COVID pandemic. So why was crime out of control in 2018 and 2019 when there was no pandemic? Why don't reporters ask them that?

-- I believe this points to Keller and Medina instructing police officers that they are just insurance report takers for property crimes. They have no interest in solving them.

On February 22, 2023 D’Val Westphal, Albuquerque Journal Editorial Page editor, wrote a blistering editorial about her experience with crime in Albuquerque and APD’s less-than-interested response. To this I say, “Welcome to what a majority of citizens have know for years, crime in Albuquerque is bad and getting worse and those who run our city don’t have a clue how to stop it and some crimes they just don’t care about.”

In a recent press conference both Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and Interim Police Chief Harold Medina blamed Albuquerque’s crime crisis on the COVID epidemic. Keller and Medina stated that Albuquerque is just like every other city in the nation that is experiencing a rising crime during 2020.

What Keller and Medina didn’t say, and they hope they don’t get asked, is what is the excuse for rising crime in 2017, 2018 and 2019? Keller became mayor in 2017, there was no pandemic. In 2018 and 2019 there was no pandemic either. Yet all three years saw record homicides and out-of-control crime under Keller’s watch. So why wasn’t Keller able to get control in the years he has been mayor, before COVID?

At another press conference, Medina stated that APD is only solving 10 percent of all property crimes. How does that make you feel? As Westphal stated, she and her neighbors had good video of their criminals, yet APD didn’t want to take, nor watch, the video. It’s hard to solve a crime when you don’t take the video evidence of the criminal doing the crime. I believe this points to Keller and Medina instructing police officers that they are just insurance report takers for property crimes. They have no interest in solving them, therefore they don’t require officers to view and tag into evidence the videos of the crime itself.

In a recent private video chat with APD officers, Medina admitted that he would like to focus on fighting crime but that is just not the reality when the DOJ consent decree is requiring him to divert dozens of officers to policing other officers instead of protecting you from criminals. Medina and Keller have made the decision that pleasing their federal government DOJ overseer’s is more important than using your tax dollars to protect you and your property from crime.

Albuquerque has become a crime mecca for criminals. Keller and Medina have surrendered to the cartels and crooks. Your tax dollars are being used to fund fat-cat feds from out of town who scream “catastrophe” to the federal judge who is overseeing the consent decree, all to ensure that their Albuquerque taxpayer-funded million-dollar contracts continue. Sadly, as Jackie Vigil and hundreds of other murder victims and thousands of other crime victims have discovered, if you live in Albuquerque you are on your own. Keller and Medina have proven incapable of protecting you and are inept when it comes to solving your crime.After over three years of crime fighting failure, I can only come to two conclusions: Keller and Medina are incompetent or they believe criminals deserve to have your life and property.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you live in the county, the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department will still respond to your call for help, watch the video of your crime and try to track down your assailants. Maybe we should disband the APD and let BCSO handle crime fighting.

Westphal hits the nail on the head when she writes, “…..Just giving the impression APD is concerned would go a long way.”.

Welcome to reality in Albuquerque.