APD chief: I'm retiring on a high note

Crime's down. Recruitment is up. The Albuquerque Police Department has fully complied with a legal settlement mandating hundreds of court-approved reforms to improve accountability and prevent the use of excessive force.

It's not a bad time to retire, according to Chief of Police Harold Medina.

His formal announcement Wednesday that he will leave APD effective Dec. 31 capped four years of ups and downs as the leader of the biggest police agency in a city that's been ranked among the most violent in the U.S. for years. 

"I wanted to exit at the right moment," he told the Journal. "And this is the right moment in so many ways; the accomplishments are there."

Medina, who has spent 30 years in law enforcement, will work on developing training for a company he declined to identify.

"What got us here was teamwork and leaders who stand up for officers who are doing their jobs, day in and day out,” Medina said in a statement. “I couldn’t ask for anything more."

Mayor Tim Keller's office issued a news release stating he will announce his future plans for APD’s leadership after he is sworn in Jan. 1 to a third term. City Chief Administrative Officer Samantha Sengel will name an acting chief at that time. The city will conduct a national search for a new chief.

Keller appointed Medina as deputy chief when Keller was first elected mayor in 2017. Keller promoted Medina to chief of police in 2021. More recently in his tenure, Medina was elected president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association in 2025. His vice president is the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Medina had initially returned to APD after retiring as a commander in 2014. He then became chief of police for Laguna Pueblo.

Then-Chief Michael Geier helped bring him back, Medina said. But once Keller asked Geier to retire and Medina became chief, not "one single previous chief of APD ever emailed me, called me, or just simply said, would you like to go get a cup of coffee," Medina said. Geier filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city in 2022 alleging his efforts to investigate possible wrongdoing at APD were ignored, which is still pending.

Medina said his encouragement came from former New Mexico State Police Chief Pete Kassetas, and then-state Attorney General Hector Balderas and then-Bernalillo County District Attorney Raúl Torrez — now state attorney general.

"That's one of the things that enabled me to survive this job, were the relationships I had," Medina said.

Medina credits his contacts with community leaders and victims' groups, such as the New Mexico Crusaders for Justice, as helping him succeed.

For instance, after the fallout from the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, newly appointed Chief Medina asked his staff to find a phone number for one of the founders of the Black New Mexico Movement.

"When I became chief, the first thing I did that morning was I asked that our intel find us a phone number for Te Barry,” he said. "I said, 'I'm Harold Medina, I'm the new chief. I know you're involved in all these (police brutality) protests. Can we sit down and talk?'"

He said his staff back then was worried when he told them he was going to meet Barry at Laguna Burger.

"They wanted a SWAT team ready. I said, 'I'm going to go.'" He acquiesced and took a deputy chief along with him, but the meeting launched "a great partnership and a great relationship. We learned so much from each other. We worked through protests together."

Among the lows of his tenure as chief: a February 2024 incident in which he struck another car to avoid gunfire as he and his wife headed to a news conference in an unmarked APD vehicle on East Central.

Two individuals had been fighting on the street, one pulled out a gun and shots were fired. Medina and his wife were in the line of fire, city reports show, so he sped through the intersection and crashed into a Mustang traveling east on Central. The driver was transported to the hospital and has filed suit against the city, which is still ongoing. 

Medina said he is most proud of the May 12 dismissal of a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, which found in 2014 that APD had an unlawful pattern of excessive force, including deadly force. Ending that settlement meant the APD complied with some 300 reforms, an outcome many other chiefs around the country have been unable to achieve.

Medina — who was a longtime officer in the pre-DOJ era — said he's seen a culture change in the department.

"There's no exact way to measure it, but I see more officers now with empathy for the unhoused than ever before. And you look at the video about how our officers deescalate nowadays and the communication they put into it. It's a world of difference," he said.

In the meantime, under his watch, APD's clearance rate — cases solved by arrest — has improved from about 55% to 86%. Homicides also skyrocketed under his tenure and, in 2022, the department tallied a record-high 121 slayings. Since then homicides have steadily declined and 64 have been recorded so far this year.

Car thefts have dropped 44%, and "just yesterday, we got an update. We should be fully staffed by March," he said. That means a police force of about 1,000 sworn officers, which hasn't been achieved for more than a decade.

“Chief Medina took over a department rife with challenges, he was tasked with concluding the DOJ CASA (Court Approved Settlement Agreement), bringing crime numbers down, increase the number of officers and improving trust in the community and with the rank and file,” Keller said in a statement. “He retires having achieved these goals and leaves the department a dramatically better place, we are grateful for his 30 years of service for community and the turnaround he led as chief.”

Medina acknowledges the times he "got into trouble for Twitter," and what some have criticized as inappropriate mean tweets responding to APD critics.

"But it was done with a purpose. Officers want to see that leadership stands up for the department and for them. My officers felt supported and they worked hard for me," he said. 

That was part of the rationale for his appearance at scenes of police shootings, no matter the time of night.

Medina added, "I led this department the best way I knew how, while developing the next generation of leaders."

Colleen Heild is an investigative reporter. She also writes about CYFD and federal courts. You can reach her at cheild@abqjournal.com.