APD Issues & Suggestions

Immediate Re-Organization of APD Command Staff

1. Interim Chief of Police
Interim Chief should be appointed with the understanding that a nationwide search for a permanent
Chief will be conducted. The interim chief will understand the immediacy of the crime problem and will
initiate immediate measures to begin to mitigate the crime problem.
2. Reorganization of Bureaus
The APD Bureaus are fat. There should be a Deputy Chief for Administration, Field Services and
Investigations. The current chief instituted the rank of Major, why? The rank should be discarded and
Captains should be assigned as those in charge of the bureaus under the supervision of the Deputy
Chief.
3. Replace Command Staff with candidates from Lt. and Capts that are proven to be motivated and
embrace change and new direction. The current command staff is part of the problem and not the
solution moving forward. The current command staff should be replaced with interim Deputy Chiefs
until such time as a new chief is named, can review and interview candidates for command staff
positions.
4. Initiate a Nationwide search for permanent Chief of Police
5. IMMEDIATELY appoint a main point of contact for the Dept. of Justice Monitor team and totally
commit to implementing the DOJ reforms to the letter. Until the DOJ-Federal Judge has determined
that APD has complied fully with the terms of the Settlement Agreement recruitment will suffer,
economic development will absolutely be non-existent and the crime rate will continue unabated.
6. This paragraph from the Public Administration Times should be the candidates mantra and be
communicated to the citizens:

The safety of the public and their neighborhoods is the

most important job of government. All the efforts to build
infrastructure, develop great schools, recruit highwage
jobs and provide great public services and recreational
amenities all pale in comparison to the importance of crime
prevention strategies. Without safe streets, residents
move, businesses relocate, schools collapse and
neighborhoods that thrive become shells of their
existence. Many strategies exist to address crimemost
of these involve modern law enforcement

Policies for Making the Albuquerque Police Department the best police
department in the Nation
 1. Immediate Crime Rate Reduction and Citizen Safety Strategies
a.i) Immediately on day one, require each officer/detective not assigned to Field Services (Area
Commands) get in uniform and be available one shift per week, or every two weeks to either:
Be assigned with a uniformed officer in one of the areas commands that is short staffed
to be a two man unit to handle calls for service, or
Be assigned to a squad with a Lt. and Sgt. and 8-10 officers to conduct saturation
patrols based on the analysis of the unit that tracks crime patterns throughout the city.
Currently there is not sufficient officers on the streets to be proactive. Although follow-up
investigations conducted by Detectives, and administrative duties, training duties etc. are very
important nothing is more important that responding to 911 calls. When overall staffing
increases these requirements can be slowly eliminated.
a.ii) Initiate retention bonuses solely for LTs and below to stop the loss through retirement of
seasoned officers.
a.iii) Development of Metropolitan Multi-Agency Safe Streets Task Force for targeting high
crime areas with saturation enforcement. The interim chief should immediately meet with the
heads of the FBI, ATF, Postal Inspectors, DEA, US Marshalls Service, Bernalillo County
Sheriffs Department, Sandoval County Sheriffs Department, Valencia County Sheriffs
Department and State Police. Create a task force with officers from APD, and a couple of
agents and deputies from each of the agencies. This is a huge force multiplier. If each
agency were to assign two individuals to the task force that would be 18 deputies/agents with
APD officers. The task force members would all be cross commissioned and would be able to
enforce state and federal laws throughout the metropolitan area. This group would saturate
high crimes areas anywhere in the metro area to reduce crime as criminals do not restrict their
criminal acts to one jurisdiction.
a.iv) Utilize Department of Justice, Justice Assistance Grants to fund overtime and equipment costs
for the task force. The only cost that would most likely present itself would be the cost of
overtime for officers and deputies.
a.v) Implement a variation of the Broken Windows policing theory. The Broken Windows theory is
based on enforcement for any violation of law. By enforcing what some would consider
insignificant laws, enforcement officials establish a proactive presence which will normally
drive criminals out of the area. This is followed up with saturation proactive patrols in all areas
on a random basis which makes criminals decide to move on to other cities where the proactive
presence of law enforcement is not as great. This doesnt change criminal behavior this
eradicates the criminal element from areas. This is strictly an Immediate solution and must be
explained as such. Long term solutions will need to include drug education, intervention and
treatment.
a.vi) Stress the approach is short term to get crime rate decrease and make citizens feel safer in the
community.

2. Short term Crime Rate Reduction and Citizen Safety Strategy

i) Increase the number of officers by initiating a Qualified Officer Lateral Hiring Program. This
program would ONLY consider officers from other law enforcement agencies that meet a certain

Maez Security Consultants Inc. of Texas, 7719 Wood Hollow Drive, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78731, 210.771.2458 Maez
Security Consultants LLC of NM, 8421 Osuna NE, Suite D, Albuquerque, NM 87110 | 505.515.0202
 criteria with strict vetting (in-depth background checks, polygraphs etc) of candidates to ensure
that other agencies rejects are not allowed into the program. This approach is been tried in the
past, learn the mistakes made to ensure only qualified and stable officers are hired.
ii) Two month academy for lateral hires with six months OJT with TO, 12 month probationary period
after OJT.
iii) Evaluate sworn officer administrative and non-enforcement assignments, ie. PIOs, re-assign to
patrol duties

3. Long term Crime Rate Reduction and Citizen Safety Strategy

i) Re-allocation of city funds from feel good projects, ie. street median beautification
projects, parks and recreation new projects, other areas etc. Explain to citizens that until
the APD is the best trained, most highly paid, fully staffed police department in the
Southwest the citizens of Albuquerque will not use these facilities because of a lack of
feeling safe due to the high crime rate and possibility of becoming a victim.
ii) Explain that once that the economic growth that the other candidates tout as their greatest
priority to create jobs, increase the tax base, and improve schools will not happen as long
as the crime rate is rampant in Abq and companies feel the area is safe to relocate
employees to this area.
iii) Increase the number of police officers who attend and graduate from the police academy.
Utilize retired law enforcement personnel as well as some of the current sworn officer
instructors at the police academy along with individuals with an academic background.
iv) Double the number of police academy graduates. If the APD is one of the highest paid
police departments in the SW applicants will increase drastically. If the APD is out from
under the cloud of the DOJ investigation/consent decree applicants will increase
drastically.
v) Social programs to give individuals committing criminal acts options to get away from a life
of drugs and crime. Drug intervention, treatment and counselling, job training etc.

Immigration Issue
The position of the APD should be that it, the police department, will not actively seek and
arrest individuals that are in violation of US Immigration laws. The APD will assist Immigration
Agents in the same manner as they do the FBI in apprehending bank robbers, the DEA in drug
cases and ATF in cases involving guns and explosives. The APD does not have the
resources to inforce federal law and will not be tasked to do so.
Maez Security Consultants Inc. of Texas, 7719 Wood Hollow Drive, Suite 200, Austin, TX 78731, 210.771.2458 Maez
Security Consultants LLC of NM, 8421 Osuna NE, Suite D, Albuquerque, NM 87110 | 505.515.0202