Keller should hire another Hispanic or female police chief

A question I asked Police Chief Harold Medina last week has had me thinking.

During our hour-and-a-half meeting Wednesday in the chief's corner office on the sixth floor of Albuquerque Police Department headquarters, I asked Medina if the next police chief should be Hispanic or female.

"When I became chief, I walked in here for my interview, I did my interview from this office because I was interim," explained Medina, the fourth Hispanic police chief in APD history following Sam Baca; interim chief for nine months, George Padilla; and Gilbert G. Gallegos from December 2001 through March 2005 — no relation to current APD spokesperson Gilbert Eloy Gallegos Jr. APD has never had a female chief.

"And I walked past the Wall of Chiefs outside here," Medina continued. "I had gotten here early and I started doing math. Back then (in 2020) it was 133 years of history of chiefs in Albuquerque, for a city that the majority is a minority. I think it was 13 of those 133 years a minority had been chief. It's no wonder that we had gotten so sideways with the community."

As an unapologetic white male and proud member of the heterosexual community — although I hope I'm remembered for much more than my race, gender and sexual orientation — I am as much against affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion hiring as someone can possibly be.

Affirmative action became a thing a decade before I entered the workforce in the '80s. I believe my race, gender and sexual orientation have often worked against me when it came to job hiring and promotions. Employers have sometimes conceded as much when I've asked about it in the most diplomatic terms that wouldn't get them crosswise with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972.

No one hires a straight white guy because he's a straight white guy. At times, I've thought about listing my race as Black on applications for Associated Press positions just to see if checking a DEI box would be a difference-maker with a second application otherwise identical to the first. I may do that one day to prove my point that reverse-discrimination has become embedded in the American workforce for 50 years, and has deeply divided us.

To be a color-blind society we need to truly be a color-blind society. Or as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts put it in the majority opinion of a June 2007 case that limited the use of race in school integration plans: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

That seems pretty sensible and fair to those on my side of the political aisle.

However, Medina made a salient argument in pointing out that Albuquerque is a majority-minority city. We also need to be practical. A Hispanic police chief is a good fit for Albuquerque. Having a person of color or a woman in a key law enforcement leadership post in Albuquerque does have its benefits. And it would also be good if the next police chief spoke Spanish.

"I think it would help," Medina said.

Medina, who has spent 30 years in law enforcement, shared an anecdote as an illustration during an interview with a Journal staff writer last week. On Wednesday, he announced his retirement effective Dec. 31, after five-plus years as interim and permanent police chief.

Medina said he spent his first morning as interim police chief in September 2020 reaching out to a leader of the Black New Mexico Movement to arrange a meeting with him. They met at Laguna Burger and Medina says it launched "a great partnership and a great relationship."

"So, I think there are strong relationships that can be built off a Hispanic or a female (police chief), yes, advantages that they would have in the community," Medina told me last week, adding the most important thing is to hire a "strong leader who comes in and communicates well with the mayor, communicates well with city council, and pushes back on both for the betterment of the department."

Mayor Tim Keller has said he'll launch a national search for a new police chief after he begins his third term in January. Keller told KOB4 last week the process could take three to nine months.

Keller could save the city a lot of money and time by first taking a look at those from within APD, including George Vega, deputy chief of the investigations bureau, who has a work history with gang units, homicides and auto thefts; Cecily Barker, deputy chief of field services who oversees six area commands and who was a former deputy chief of the investigative bureau; and APD Chief of Staff Mike Hernandez, who has seen everything that goes on on the sixth floor up close and personal for three years.

They would be a good place for Keller to start looking. All of them are either female or Hispanic, and that's OK with me. And my finder's fee is free.

Jeff Tucker is a former Opinion editor of the Albuquerque Journal and a member of the Journal Editorial Board. He may be emailed at jtucker@abqjournal.com.