Eight more cops resign

By Dan Klein

After my most recent column on homicide I received several messages from sources within APD who advised me that just last Friday, (July 23, 2023) another eight officers had resigned from the police department.

I was also told by another source that on July 25, 2021, the Valley Area Command only had three officers on duty for day shift patrol. The Valley Area Command is I-25 on the east, the Rio Grande on the west, approximately Montano Road on the north and approximately Bridge Blvd. on the south. This area includes the Railyards, all of downtown, the Biopark, Wells Park, Barelas, Tingley Beach, etc. Think about this, only three officers.

I would try to corroborate this information, but the public information officer at APD has refused to respond to any inquiries I make. I have heard this same complaint from many other people. It seems APD’s PIO picks and chooses who he wants to respond to based upon the softball questions he receives. Remember this, the PIO is there to answer all citizens inquiries, not just from his favorites. He works for all of us and yet he is allowed to ignore the citizens he does not wish to respond to. This is unprofessional and in direct conflict with transparency promises made by both Chief Medina and Mayor Keller.

By my count, it means that APD is down to 932 sworn officers, far from the 1,100 that Mayor Tim Keller promised us. Keller is failing us.

I could make an IPRA (Inspection of Public Records Request Act) request to obtain this information, but once again APD, seems to have a policy of delay, delay, delay so by the time you receive your information months have gone by and the timeliness of presenting these facts is gone. It will not matter to citizens that the Valley Area only had three officers working on July 25 if that information is only released on December 25. This is the game APD is playing when members of the public ask them hard questions that they should answer immediately. The PIO ignores or tells you to make an IPRA request.

APD and Mayor Keller should be transparent and honest, as he promised when he was elected four years ago. Albuquerque citizens deserve to know the truth in a timely fashion. They deserve public servants who SERVE and not who obstruct.