Report: Civilian police oversight 'in crisis' as city, police near full compliance on reforms

A recent assessment of Albuquerque police reforms found that civilian oversight is “in crisis,” with understaffing and excessive caseloads leading to inadequate investigations by the external board tasked with everything from evaluating civilian complaints to weighing in on police shootings.

The hang-ups related to civilian oversight represent the largest remaining roadblock to the city ending its yearslong consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice.

On Wednesday, Independent Monitor James Ginger filed the latest report on police reforms, showing that the city of Albuquerque had reached 94% compliance with the Court-Approved Settlement Agreement, or CASA.

The report also showed that 12 of the remaining 15 sections that are noncompliant revolve around the operations of the Civilian Police Oversight Advisory Board (CPOA), formed in January after the City Council abolished the previous iteration.

The monitor found that since that change, the CPOA hasn’t been able to properly function as the five-person board currently has only two members.

“From the monitor’s perspective, CPOA is in crisis. This crisis was birthed by understaffing, the need for the City to fill supervisory and oversight positions, and the need to improve the organizational structure of the agency,” according to the monitor’s report.

The CPOA’s problems also led the city to fall behind on secondary compliance, which concerns training, as it had reached 100% compliance in the 17th report but now sits at 99%, due to a drop in CPOA training.

City Council President Pat Davis said in a letter to Mayor Tim Keller that changes to “key leadership” within the City Council and the administration “slowed things down” over the summer, but they have since interviewed more than a dozen applicants for the vacant board positions.

Davis said the council expects to reach its initial goal of having those positions filled, as well as filling a crucial leadership role, by the end of the year.

‘Little casita’

The monitoring team reviewed a random sampling of 20 CPOA cases centered on civilian complaints and found deficiencies in six of them, all of which failed to meet deadlines, and two cases also had incomplete interviews.

The issues stemmed from low staffing, with six investigators tasked with investigating more than 600 complaints a year, according to the report. The end result was a backlog of dozens of complaints and only half of the investigations being completed.

The monitoring team called the workload “excessive and unsustainable,” saying it “likely leads to poor outcomes regarding timelines, quality, and effectiveness.” In the worst-case scenarios, lower-priority cases extend past due dates, and any sustained findings cannot be disciplined, according to the report.

The team suggested fully staffing the board, filling three vacant supervisory roles and conducting a staffing study to “establish realistic expectations” on a mandatory number of investigators needed for the workload.

CPOA Executive Director Diane McDermott did not respond to calls or messages for comment.

On Friday, Davis said the board is expected to be fully staffed and hire a contract compliance officer, who would make sure the CPOA abides by the settlement agreement and would be in charge of staffing, by the end of December.

“We’re on track,” he said. “This is the last big ticket item, the administration wants it done fast, the monitor wants it done fast, we want it done well — and fast.”

During a news conference on Wednesday, Keller said the CPOA is the responsibility of the City Council, but his administration is “here to help.”

When asked if the city could reach full compliance without the CPOA portions of the CASA fulfilled, city and police officials replied, “Just barely.”

Keller said if the City Council doesn’t get the CPOA into compliance with the CASA, one option would be to split the CASA into two, calling the CPOA half “a little casita.”