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In the midst of a spike in shootings by its officers the Albuquerque Police Department is working to change policies so they can use “less-lethal” force earlier in an encounter – in the hope of preventing the need for deadly force.
Additionally, the department’s executive staff and city attorneys will review this year’s 18 shootings by officers to see if they can identify and address any trends. Among those incidents 10 people were killed and three were injured. In five cases no one was struck.
The number of shootings has alarmed advocates, and discussions of the increase dominated a recent federal court hearing on APD’s reform effort. Last year APD officers shot at 10 people, killing four, injuring five, and missing one.
But Chief Harold Medina said he’s been contemplating changes for a while and APD has already been working on them with the Department of Justice and the independent monitoring team overseeing the reforms.
“We had already been trying to change the policy,” he said in a phone interview. “But as we heard everybody’s concerns during the hearing, I really felt there was a way we could do this better. That’s when we got these ideas of we should meet to look at all the cases at once as a whole.”
Medina said he hopes to have policies approved in the next month.
“One of my big frustrations right now is our processes take so long – like we identified issues but by the time we get everything approved through everybody it takes months,” he said.
Totality of circumstances
On Feb. 20, 2021, drivers in the area of San Mateo and Copper NE called 911 to report a man walking in traffic lanes.
Two officers responded and found Claude Trivino – a 40-year-old Native American veteran from Hernandez, New Mexico, who was suffering from mental health issues.
Lapel camera video of the incident shows Trivino walking down the middle of San Mateo as officers ordered him to stop walking in traffic.
Then, the video shows, Trivino turned and ran toward the officers raising what later turned out to be a Leatherman multi-tool with the blade extended. As he threw the blade at one of the officers they both fired their guns at him.
Trivino was taken to the hospital, where he died.
Medina said this was one case where he would have liked for less-lethal options to have been authorized before deadly force was used.
As it stands right now officers cannot use force unless someone is actively resisting. Under the proposed changes Medina said he wants to broaden the definition of actively resisting and allow officers to take the totality of the circumstances into consideration.
“Let’s say Mr. Trivino was walking through an open field and there were 300 yards before he got anywhere and officers had the ability to create a little space … officers should look and evaluate and say ‘Look this guy really has nowhere he’s going to go,'” Medina said. “This one was interactive, walking down the street, cars going all around these individuals, two officers on scene – that’s where the totality is going to say, ‘Hey, yes, we would authorize using less-lethal force.”
Following the approval of the policy changes the academy will adjust its training on how and when officers should use force.
Looking for trends
As part of the settlement agreement the city entered into with the Department of Justice to address excessive use of force, APD created a Force Review Board to examine every shooting and other critical incidents. The board also is tasked with analyzing use of force data “to determine significant trends and to identify and correct deficiencies revealed by this analysis.”
Medina said he wants APD’s executive staff and city attorneys to meet and look for trends specifically among this year’s police shootings and see if any changes need to be made. He said the board has tended to focus more on individual cases.
“Right now they go through the individual cases and if somebody there can remember or they tie into something in the past, that’s a benefit and they could try to make it a trend,” Medina said. “We are now purposely putting all the cases in front of them … and they’re going to have little different data points that we could look at and the goal is to look at them all together at the same time and see if they can identify anything that’s of a concern.”
He said the group is going to start with this year’s shootings but in the future if another type of force skyrockets they could review trends there too.
