2025 retirement may no longer be the plan for APD Chief Harold Medina

It seems like Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina could want to stick around longer than originally anticipated.

His original retirement plan for December 2025 is up in the air, Medina told the Journal in a sit-down interview Thursday.

“There are a lot of things I want to finish accomplishing,” Medina said.

It’s a switch from when Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller told the Journal in November that Medina would likely retire soon, though Medina wasn’t present for that interview.

“The idea is at the end of the term, he wants to retire, and he’s earned it. He’s several years past his PERA (which stands for Public Employees Retirement Association), but we’ll see,” Keller, who is up for reelection in 2025, said in November.

The mayor — who happened to leave around then for a dentist appointment, and “not because you just asked that,” he said jokingly — sat in on Thursday’s interview and said the city has a great pool of potential APD chief successors to pull from whenever needed, no matter who the mayor is.

Keller’s administration has been through multiple chief searches, he pointed out, and “it’s not good governance to not think about transition.”

The mayor added, “I’m very prepared to walk through that and lead the department through an interim transition.”

In terms of ticking boxes off his to-do list before he retires, Medina specifically pointed to work he’s done with the U.S. Department of Justice in bringing the department into compliance with use-of-force standards after it was found to be violating people’s civil rights and using excessive force in 2014 under Chief Ray Schultz.

Medina’s predecessors, Gorden Eden and Mike Geier, also worked with the DOJ.

Medina just battled his way out of “the morale issue,” he said, and he doesn’t want another chief to have to go back. He also said he wants crime rates to be trending in the right direction.

Medina added that he’s boosted morale in the department despite what critics, including a city councilor, say. Former APD officer and City Councilor Louie Sanchez often criticizes the department and calls for Medina’s job at council meetings.

Sanchez did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The chief’s possible decision to keep his post comes after a year of headlines that began in January. Then, a text obtained by nonprofit news outlet City Desk became public in which he discussed plans to “hammer the unhoused but be prepared for the next complaint” with the mayor. Medina said Thursday the text was taken out of context and he uses the term “hammer” often.

It continued in February, when the FBI opened a probe into corruption within the department’s DWI unit. Later in the month, Medina crashed into a vintage Ford Mustang fleeing gunfire on his way to a news conference in the International District. He didn’t turn on his lapel camera afterward. The driver Todd Perchert was hospitalized by the crash.

“I want this clear — I still have a passion for this job,” Medina told the Journal on Thursday. “I still love this job every day.”

Medina has built “a great bench,” Keller said, including with APD Deputy Chief Cecily Barker — for whom Medina voiced support for becoming the next APD chief.

APD has never had a female police chief.

Though Medina doesn’t have a say in who takes over the role next — the mayor, with City Council approval, appoints police and fire chiefs — he said Barker has been trained in leadership.

“I put 30 years into this department, and if there is a strong transition for me to (retire), then yes, (I will),” Medina said. “I need to see where the department is. There’s so many unknowns.”

Medina’s visit to the Journal came exactly a month after Albuquerque voters approved an amendment to the city’s charter that allows the City Council to fire police and fire chiefs without cause on a 7-2 vote.

Keller argues that it increases his power as mayor, but on Election Night, in a news release, his office said the charter amendments may have to be reviewed by the courts because they weren’t written clearly enough for voters. He said Thursday his office wasn’t planning on challenging it in court because “it’s the city who actually put that on there.”

Medina said he likes the amendment because if he’s voted out, he gets paid.

“NFL coaches, college coaches, when they’re released before their contract is good, they get a nice, big paycheck. I think the council blundered this,” Medina said.

While it seems like Medina might not retire on the timeline initially thought, some still think he won’t be the police chief come 2026.

“That’s up for a new mayor to decide, and I don’t think Keller is going to be the next mayor,” City Council President Dan Lewis told the Journal on Thursday, though he told Keller “you’re probably going to get reelected” in texts obtained by the Journal in October.

While Medina voiced his ambitions Thursday to remain the head of the department, he did not entirely rule out the possibility of retirement by December 2025.

“Time will tell,” Medina said.