Another week has gone by in Albuquerque, and we can add four more victims to the ever-growing number of homicides in Albuquerque.
This week we had homicides reported at 800 San Pedro Se, The ARBY’S at Jefferson and Paseo del Norte, 441 Tennessee Ne and at Grove and Zuni.
The number of homicides in Albuquerque now stands at 75.
These numbers include all homicides as reported by the Albuquerque Journal Homicide map, two homicides that the NMSP are investigating (but occurred in the city limits), all justified homicides and the two children killed by their mothers in a drunk driving accident.
The silence from Mayor Tim Keller on this killing epidemic is indicative of a politician who has no answers and therefore has decided to ignore the problem. In Keller’s utopia, if he doesn’t talk about it, then it doesn’t exist.
Chief Medina will continue to blame the pandemic for the crime rates, but what he won’t tell you is there was no pandemic in 2019, when Albuquerque set a homicide record. A record that will be broken in 2021. Medina will try to tell you that property crime is going down, but his deputy chief, Mike Smathers, told APD officers in May that property crime was up. I am pretty sure Smathers has it right. The only reason property rates in Albuquerque would decline is due to citizens not reporting it. Why report a property crime if it will take hours for APD to respond, there will be no investigation, APD doesn’t want to view your video evidence and all that will happen is your insurance (if you have insurance) will go up. That is why property crime is down, citizens, just like APD, have given up.
Charles Arasim sent me a statement from Mayor Keller that said NMSP is now going to be responsible for any fatal accident on I25 and I40, APD will not be the investigating agency. This goes along with Joe Monahan continually complaining to me about the raceways that Albuquerque streets have become. To quote Joe, “Where in the hell is APD”?
Where indeed?