OPINION: City Council was right not to pursue a no-confidence vote against Police Chief Medina

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina’s weak suit has always been his political awareness.

After all, Medina was elevated to police chief as part of a no-confidence campaign against former Police Chief Michael Geier.

Geier had complained Medina had been insubordinate and he had wanted to reassign his first deputy chief, but he needed the mayor’s approval. Instead, it backfired and led to Geier’s ouster, which was unceremonious, to say the least.

Keller broke the news to Geier during a 2020 Labor Day rendezvous in a small neighborhood park in Albuquerque’s far Northeast Heights. Geier’s 47-year law enforcement career essentially came to an end at a park bench during the discrete meeting with Mayor Tim Keller, who was clad in sunglasses and baseball cap to keep it on the down low. The mayor’s team later accused Geier of being an “absentee chief.”

The following Monday, Keller named Medina acting chief. The mayor named Medina permanent chief in March 2021 after a national search.

There are a lot of internal politics in police agencies. It was Medina’s political maneuvering that got him behind the chief’s desk, and it’s only the mayor’s loyalty that’s keeping him behind it.

Meanwhile, there’s no love lost between Medina and Geier, who may be watching events unfolding with his successor with a “what goes around comes around” chuckle.

Indeed, Chief Medina is under fire. Going after him has become a bit of a blood sport of late. And it’s gone far enough.

Medina is perhaps having the toughest year of his law enforcement career, even after APD had its best year in a decade last year, with more arrests and significantly fewer uses of force, increases in warrant arrests in both felony and misdemeanor cases, and inching ever so closer to compliance with a 2014 Court Approved Settlement Agreement regarding use of force after nearly 10 years and more than $10 million of federal oversight costs.

Then the storm hit in 2024.

In January, the DWI scandal came to light when FBI agents searched the homes of APD officers, a prominent local defense attorney’s office and a paralegal’s home. The FBI investigation into drunken driving case dismissals had led to five officer resignations and the dismissal of nearly 200 pending DWI cases filed by the suspended officers, whose credibility could have been challenged in court because of the ongoing FBI investigation into allegations of corruption within APD’s DWI unit for a decade.

“Chief Medina has made it seem like there are just a few bad officers acting on their own,” suspended officer Joshua Montaño wrote in his recent resignation letter. “This is far from the truth.”

Montaño’s attorney says the resignation letter shows the alleged conduct “didn’t happen within a cell or a silo.”

Investigators are now reviewing recordings captured by body-recording devices and surveillance video and identifying witnesses. Next, investigators will compile questions for witnesses. The investigation could drag on for years.

Meanwhile, an ominous shadow will continue hanging over APD while the FBI and APD investigate the biggest potential scandal in APD history. It must be known how far the DWI scandal penetrated the department, and what Medina knew, when he knew it, and what he did about it.

Was he the man who knew too much, or the man who knew too little?

Next, on Feb. 17, on the way to a Saturday morning news conference with his wife in the passenger seat of his unmarked APD truck, Medina T-boned a car on East Central while he said he was trying to avoid gunfire. The other driver was seriously injured and appears likely to sue and collect significant sums from the city in damages. Fortunately, 55-year-old Todd Perchert survived the high-impact collision, albeit with multiple broken bones and numerous other injuries.

The police chief’s split-second decision has come under heavy scrutiny, and was the final straw for City Councilor Louie Sanchez, who introduced a no-confidence resolution.

We’ve said before we do not fault Chief Medina for trying to protect himself and his family. Many of us, and many in uniform, would have done the same thing under similar circumstances. Expecting Medina to jump out of his truck and effect an arrest while his wife was close by and under gunfire is totally unreasonable.

Medina checked on the other driver and used his radio to call for an ambulance. He did what could reasonably be expected of an officer caught up in a crime scene while driving with his wife.

It’s been a tough year for Medina alright, but it needs to be put in perspective.

No one questions Medina’s dedication to APD and the public. He’s been on TV so much at crime scenes that he’s a familiar face in town.

Medina is responsive to the media and communities within Albuquerque. He holds frequent substantive news conference and his team will get us answers. Medina himself is no stranger to the Journal’s offices, nor community meetings.

All told, he’s been a very visible and effective police chief, not an “absentee chief” by any means.

That’s why a no-confidence vote against Medina had to be withdrawn at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

Councilor Sanchez knew he didn’t have the votes and moved for a two-week deferral of the bill to allow for additional time to answer the council’s questions. But the motion for deferral failed on a 5-4 vote, and Sanchez withdrew the declaration, which had little or no legal binding anyway.

It was an unnecessary show of City Hall division and dysfunctionality.

Regarding Medina’s accident, members of the Crash Review Board said at Wednesday’s City Council meeting the board had voted unanimously to deem Medina’s crash non-preventable.

The Fatal Crash unit, a different group than the Crash Review Board, conducted its own investigation, concluding that while Medina failed to obey a traffic signal and didn’t activate his emergency lights and sirens, officers would not pursue criminal charges.

Medina’s crash was serious, but not grounds for removal.

A no-confidence vote at this time is simply premature until we know more about the DWI scandal and what Medina did or didn’t do about it. The City Council was correct not to pursue a no-confidence vote and should keep its powder dry until we know more.

Yes, what goes around comes around.

But Chief Medina doesn’t deserve to be drummed out of office the way Geier was. Not unless and until there’s evidence he mishandled the DWI scandal. He should be retained and allowed to continue doing his job to the best of his ability.