The candidates' plans to deliver on crime-fighting promises if elected mayor

How will the mayor of Albuquerque try to make its streets safer in the next four years?

Depends on which candidate you ask.

There’s a stark contrast between the plans proposed by incumbent and challenger in the lead-up to the Dec. 9 runoff election.

For instance, two-term incumbent Tim Keller wants to expand the Albuquerque Police Department’s burgeoning “crime fighting shield” of advanced technology — a strategy that has cost an estimated $80 million over the last eight years.

His challenger, retired law enforcement officer Darren White, would instead pursue past strategies like sending officers to patrol the streets, writing more traffic tickets and serving warrants. But he offered no price tag on that proposal or details about its feasibility in a chronically understaffed agency of 925 officers that is budgeted for 1,000 officers.

The candidates disagree on whether the crime rate has dropped this year — despite FBI statistics showing improvement. But public opinion has yet to catch up. A Journal poll of voters in late September showed crime continues to be the top concern among Albuquerque residents.

Last year Albuquerque had the sixth-highest violent crime rate and fifth-highest property crime rate among cities nationwide, according to the FBI reporting.

Citing the rise of violent juvenile crime and the “fentanyl epidemic” in the city, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in April and sent an estimated 125 National Guard troops to Albuquerque at APD Chief Harold Medina’s request.

The goal, officials have said, was to help free up more sworn officers to patrol the streets and investigate violent crimes.

It’s not clear what the National Guard’s impact has been on Albuquerque’s crime rate, or how long the nonuniformed troops will stay. An Aug. 8 news conference to detail the results of the initiative was cancelled and hasn’t been rescheduled.

Whoever wins the runoff election, the FY26 city budget predicts the next mayor will have to contend with city revenue growth slowing, as Albuquerque braces for possible federal funding cuts.

Moreover, APD’s annual budget of about $285 million is already stretched thin, according to Medina. And if the National Guard leaves, there’s no immediate replacement.

As for Medina, he is retiring, allowing whoever wins to appoint a successor.

Based on candidate interviews, here’s a sampling of their top public safety priorities:

White

Challenger Darren White, a former Bernalillo County sheriff and police officer in Albuquerque and Houston, looks to his past of police work in framing his crime-fighting strategies.

“Why not look at it from the standpoint of, ‘what can we do (from) the past that kept crime at bay?’” he said. Aside from a brief period in 2009, when APD had a police force of 1,100 officers, the department has in recent history struggled to meet its budgeted goal — currently set at 1,000 officers.

White said he would convert executive staffing positions within APD to patrolling units to bolster sworn positions. There are currently about 38 executive officers within APD, although Medina said he has already been streamlining those positions.

“We’re going to go through the department from top to bottom and find out where officers are currently assigned … if those positions can be filled with somebody else that isn’t a sworn officer, then we’ll do it,” White said.

As for recruiting, White said he would personally travel to other police agencies across the nation and try to bring in officers with recruitment commercials “appealing to people’s sense of service.”

White said APD would need to devote at least 350 officers, and “maybe more,” to patrol the streets under his plan. APD currently exceeds that number, with 420 officers who work in field services, patrolling the streets.

Proactive policing would be key, White said, which he described as officers on the streets writing traffic citations, conducting homeless encampment sweeps and picking up people on warrants.

By assigning officers to routine patrols, White said, “They’re not just waiting for something to happen. They’re out there proactively doing something and that’s been completely lost.”

To curb juvenile crime, White said he would create a specialized juvenile crime unit that focuses on investigating crimes that have been committed by juveniles.

“I want it to be a unit of specialized detectives who work very closely with the (District Attorney’s Office) and work very closely with juvenile probation,” he said.

White said crime-fighting technologies — like license plate readers, gunfire detection devices or speed cameras — can support officers, but they cannot replace them. He said he wasn’t sure if he would continue to fund the technologies Keller put in place.

“It’s all on the table,” White said, though he did say he would drastically reduce the number of license plate readers and speed cameras installed around the city in the first 60 to 90 days of his term, if elected.

In particular, White said he had concerns about privacy rights regarding license plate readers storing data for a year.

“I want to see the protocols that are in place for the technology.”

White said he would also revisit the reforms implemented as a result of a 10-year overhaul of APD’s policies and practices required under a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which found APD engaged in an unconstitutional pattern of using excessive force, including deadly force.

The agreement was dismissed earlier this year after the DOJ determined APD had come into compliance with the reforms.

“I want to do a top to bottom review of everything that was done. ... While balancing it from the standpoint of not repeating the past, but also ensuring that we’re able to provide a law enforcement service to the public and provide public safety,” he said.

White did not say which of the reforms he supported or which policies he would revamp, and stated he did not know them well enough to comment without further research.

White said he believes the crime rate is higher than reported by APD and contends there is under reporting in the community, given the public’s belief that police won’t investigate if they call 911.

But as “out of control” as White says crime is in Albuquerque, the longtime Republican said he would tell President Trump “no” to sending federal law enforcement into the city — as has been done in other cities around the country.

“I’d say ‘no’ because I think the problem is fixable with leadership.”

Keller

Incumbent Tim Keller looks to double down on his current initiatives to further combat crime.

He hopes to fully extend what he calls a “technology crime-fighting shield” to cover 100% of Albuquerque over the next four years.

“This crime-fighting shield is only complete over 20% of the city, and it’s a huge reason why I’m asking for another term, because everybody in Albuquerque deserves this,” he said.

Keller said the tech — license plate readers, gunfire detection devices and speed cameras — has helped APD free up officers for other tasks.

Over the past eight years the city, with funding assistance from state and federal officials, spent $80 million in upfront costs for the technology, but Keller didn’t specify the annual cost for each piece of technology.

Keller described crime-fighting technology and civilian employees such as police service aides as “force multipliers” for the department.

“It allows us to have more officers wherever we want to deploy them,” he said. “Whether it’s narcotics, whether it’s proactive policing, it’s the equivalent of having more officers.”

There will still be a need for additional sworn officers, so Keller’s administration has increased the number of cadet classes.

Keller said he has also prioritized the recruitment of mid-level police officers for the newly created deputy commander rank, a managerial position intended to provide oversight of subordinate officers.

Many of those officers are from other agencies, rehires or retirees who were brought back. The purpose of deputy commanders, Keller said, is to “hold people accountable and to finish projects.”

APD’s budget this year includes $2.1 million to support the retention of officers with 19-plus years of service, and it pays for five police academy classes to enhance recruitment efforts.

Much of the city’s crime problem is due, according to Keller, to the explosion of fentanyl in recent years. He said because the drug is relatively cheap and the pills are easy to carry, it’s more difficult to tamp down its use or sale.

“I think it’s naive to think that we can, in the short term, arrest our way out of fentanyl use,” he said. “What we can do is be much, much stricter and harsher on dealers. That’s the key for us to actually deal with fentanyl.”

Keller did not elaborate on his plan to deal with drug dealers.

As other U.S. cities battling crime have witnessed, Keller said arresting people on outstanding felony warrants brings “a high return on investment.”

“This is an initiative we started three years ago,” Keller said. “There’s a felony warrant backlog that got extremely large, and we’ve worked really hard to bring it down and that gets violent people off the street.”

Keller also would continue to assign nonsworn civilian employees, like police service aides, to fill roles in the police department that do not require arresting powers or a potential use of force.

Since the summer, the National Guard has assisted Albuquerque police in carrying out lesser roles — such as blocking traffic and filing documents, among other assignments — to keep more officers on the street fighting crime.

Keller said he felt like the city was in a good place and he would be content either way if the National Guard left or decided to stay in Albuquerque for another few months.

As a proactive measure, Keller said he will continue to focus on the violence intervention program, which works with people who have criminal records to “pull them out of the cycle of violence.”

To answer nonviolent behavioral and mental health calls, freeing police and fire for acute emergencies, Keller plans to continue relying on the Albuquerque Community Safety department.

ACS is budgeted at $2.8 million for school-based violence intervention programs, emergency services for people and their pets experiencing homelessness, and a task force on domestic violence.

The department has extended to 24/7 service and has responded to more than 100,000 calls since its inception in 2021. Even as ACS has rerouted more calls from APD, the number of people in crisis — threatening suicide or exhibiting behavioral health issues and often armed — shot by officers has remained steady.