EDITORIAL: 2023 was APD's best year in a decade, but more progress needed

It’s often easy to complain about crime. It’s sort of like the weather: we all talk about it, but no one really does anything about it.

We’ve certainly done our share of grumbling about crime in recent years as Albuquerque has experienced record-setting homicide rates, rampant shoplifting, and widespread property crimes that went unsolved because police didn’t have the time to investigate. There have also been numerous random acts of violence that have rocked the city in recent years — like a shooting outside Isotopes Park that killed an 11-year-old boy and injured his cousin, a fatal hit-and-run accident at the River of Lights that killed a 7-year-old boy, a bicyclist randomly knifing 11 people in a series of stabbings that started in Downtown, a Black Friday shooting incident at Coronado Mall that sparked a panic, a 16-year-old boy fatally shooting a man inside a Downtown Albuquerque strip club, or a suspected drunken and meth-impaired driver crashing his SUV into a Northeast Albuquerque house and killing a 74-year-old man.

Sitting at home watching “Matlock” in the middle of the day can get you killed in Albuquerque.

And that’s just a wide sampling of the crime that has defined the Metro and that no doubt causes many people to stay home and safe on the weekends, and not go out at night on any night.

But maybe it’s time to give our crime-fighters and city leaders a little credit. The data merit it, despite the chilling headlines that persist.

Police Chief Harold Medina, head of APD since March 2021, is touting 2023 statistics that show progress is being made in tamping down crime. The data are undeniable — arrests are up while uses of force are down significantly. Those are positive trends worthy of recognition.

Medina says the stats are evidence of a change in the culture at APD.

“Look at the data,” Medina said at a news conference on Wednesday. “Under the intense scrutiny that we have, use of force is down 43% (since 2020). How is that not a change of culture? How is that not the number one measure for the change of culture? Arrests are the same, but overall use of force is down.”

APD’s annual arrests increased from 9,494 in 2021 to 12,222 in 2023, a 29% increase. Meanwhile, officers’ use-of-force incidents dropped from 739 in 2021 to 515 in 2023, a 30% decrease. The fact those trendlines are going in opposite directions is both remarkable and encouraging.

One would assume the more arrests a law enforcement agency makes, the more incidents there would be of police needing to use force. However, APD officers are now routinely using force less. Lapel video has shown officers are switching to less-lethal weapons and giving people time to drop weapons before using deadly force. And use-of-force investigations are now being produced in a much more timely manner.

“This is a path of hope that we have not had previously,” Mayor Tim Keller told the Editorial Board last month.

Clearly, some much-needed restraint is becoming ingrained in APD’s culture — and that’s a good thing. The state’s largest police force never would have been put under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice if there hadn’t been so many unnecessary officer-involved shootings and use-of-force cases. The DOJ determined in 2014 that APD had a pattern of using excessive force with insufficient oversight, inadequate training and ineffective policies.

A change in culture was needed. Reforming APD has at times over the past decade felt like a Sisyphean task — where each measure of progress is greeted by a setback — as the agency inches ever closer to compliance with a 2014 Court Approved Settlement Agreement regarding use of force. It’s also been expensive. The city has paid court-appointed independent monitor James Ginger and his small team over $10 million since 2015.

There’s more good news. Warrant arrests and warrant services are going up, in both felony and misdemeanor cases. APD made 4,433 felony arrests last year, up from 3,439 in 2022. APD served 5,843 felony warrants in 2023, up from 4,612 in 2022.

And not everyone needs to be arrested. Some just need some help.

That’s where the new Albuquerque Community Safety department comes in. Since its inception in September 2021, ACS is handling more and more calls that would have otherwise gone to police officers. The vast majority of those calls have been about a homeless person or a request to check on someone’s well-being.

The creation of the Albuquerque Community Safety department, which went 24/7 in August with a 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. graveyard shift, must be a godsend for the city’s overwhelmed 905 police officers. The creation of ACS has the potential to be the most effective crime-fighting measure of the two-term administration of Keller, and it should be encouraged and adequately funded to grow.

In November, the last month stats are available, ACS responded to 3,180 calls for service. Of those, 2,496 were calls diverted from APD.

After millions of dollars of federal oversight costs, APD recently hit another key milestone at ending DOJ oversight. The department announced Dec. 26 it was resuming control of its use-of-force investigations.

“This is a major accomplishment and one of the most meaningful changes we’ve made as a department,” Medina said. “It is critical that we are able to conduct our own, thorough and professional use-of-force investigations.”

Keller and Medina often credit technology, such as cameras tied to a real-time crime center, gunshot detection sensors and automated speed enforcement, as force multipliers. The use of civilian employees as police service aides and investigators also complements sworn officers.

And while those methods are proving successful, there’s still no substitute for a police officer on the beat. And police need to know the community has their back. That’s been sorely lacking for a decade, affecting morale, recruitment and retention.

“Our officers were afraid to do their job, whether anybody wants to admit it or not,” Medina told the Editorial Board last month.

Keller concedes Burqueños still need to be alert on the mean streets of Albuquerque. This isn’t a friendly how-de-do town, sadly. It’s still the West. Too many of us have been victimized by crime in recent years to declare victory.

“It feels like we’ve turned the corner, but we’ve got a long way to go,” Keller told the Editorial Board.

Yes, we do. We credit the police officers, police service aides, city workers and their leaders for the progress. We’re hoping for more of it in 2024.

Now, if we can just get some snow in the Metro that sticks to the ground long enough for the kids to make snow angels, we can do more than talk about crime and the weather.