Homicide update

By Dan Klein

As of August 22, 2021, Albuquerque has now recorded 96 homicides within the city limits.

After a child was murdered at Washing Middle School and four Albuquerque police officers shot and wounded days later, our very own metal Mayor, Tim Keller, was forced to leave his bunker and address the citizens of Albuquerque. He told the mainstream media that he expected to break the record for homicides this year in Albuquerque. I am positive that those words from Keller were comforting to the 96 homicide victims’ families.

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting 85 homicides now within the city limits of Albuquerque. ABQREPORT is adding an additional 11 as we count all “justified” homicides (including the Marquez Floyd who was killed by the FBI) on July 14 and the two children killed by their drunk mothers. That makes 96.

The most recent homicide victims include an officer involved shooting of a suspected car thief at Moon and Menaul. Then APD discovered a homicide victim at Central and Wyoming. The New Mexico State Police is handling a homicide victim at the gas station at San Mateo and Indian School Road and finally APD is investigating a man stabbed to death at 5th and Bridge.

On the same day of the stabbing death, four APD officers were shot by one suspect as they tried to apprehend him after a robbery. Thankfully, all four offices are expected to survive, although three do have serious injuries. Sources within APD stated to ABQREPORT that the families of the wounded officers refused to meet with Mayor Keller at University Hospital. This is unconfirmed by Keller’s people, as ABQREPORT has given up asking them because they don’t respond to certain people in the public anymore.

I did have the opportunity to watch APD Chief Harold Medina addressing his officers via video after the shooting. On this occasion I give Medina strong praise for encouraging his officers to seek out mental health professionals and for admitting that he does so every six months. There is no shame in doing this and in fact it is healthy for an officer (or anyone for that matter) to sit down and talk to a professional. I don’t say this often, but good job Harold.

This was one crazy week, in a year of craziness in Albuquerque. We had Rio Grande High School on lockdown because a couple of U.S. Marshals decided that days after the shooting at Washington Middle School, it was a brilliant idea to park their undercover cars in the high school parking lot and get out with their AR-15s and exchange them. The stupidity of this action is only compounded by the fact that you can’t ask for the Marshals body cameras of this incident, because the Department of Justice doesn’t require Marshals to wear them. And don’t bother asking the DOJ who the Marshals are and if they were disciplined, the DOJ doesn’t answer to you, the citizen.

There are a lot of questions swirling around the fatal rollover accident in the east mountains that occurred after the four APD officers were shot. Was this the outcome of a car chase done by unmarked DOJ officers? That’s the rumor, but once again, the DOJ doesn’t think you need to know.

Which is why I opine so often about the hypocrisy of the DOJ, who come into cities and point their crooked fingers at local cops and demand change, but when their own officers commit the same infraction, they clam up and refuse to discuss it. Don’t believe me, try asking the US Attorney about any of these incidents and see what response you get.

To show that the wheels of Tim Keller’s utopia are coming off, the latest APD payroll records reflect only 926 sworn officers, down from a month ago when APD had 939. More sources within APD advised ABQREPORT that within the next two weeks another ten officers will be retiring or resigning. We will keep you informed if this happens.

ABQREPORT was also provided the latest results of the APD Field Services officer bid list. These are the men and women in uniform patrol that respond to your 911 call (like the four that were just shot). That bid list only has 325 officers, to patrol all of Albuquerque seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. This list was just reduced by Chief Medina by four officers because he is required to staff the Force Review Unit with sworn officers and no one at APD wants that job. Since the DOJ CASA agreement requires a certain number of sworn officers to sit and watch videos of other officers at work, Medina was forced to pull four officers from the bid and place them in Force Review, thanks DOJ!

To put this in depressing context, APD reported in March of 2021, that they had 998 sworn officers.

That means 72 police officers have left APD in just five months. At this rate APD is losing police officers faster than they can be replaced (the current academy class has 48 cadets). There are lots of reasons why officers are leaving: morale, lack of confidence in the leadership of Albuquerque, the constant second guessing, the perceived hatred from the community they serve, the hatred from the politicians in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe toward law enforcement, a job that has increased in danger and a consent decree that makes the police officer the criminal in the eyes of the DOJ and city leadership.

Albuquerque becoming more like Milton’s, Paradise Lost, one hell of a place to live.

I loved being an APD officer, but as it stands now, without massive change, I would not recommend APD to anyone wanting to become a police officer. Keller’s APD is so toxic that it will destroy even the best officers.