After more than a year, the city’s Civilian Police Oversight Advisory Board met Feb. 8 to get organized on how to go about clearing a backlog of more than 82 civilian complaints against the Albuquerque Police Department.
This was their first meeting in more than a year after city councilors did a major revamp of the Civilian Police Oversight Ordinance. In January of 2023, the City Council amended the Police Oversight Ordinance requiring a Contract Compliance officer to assemble a team to accept and review applications from candidates for the CPOA Executive Director, according to city documents. The bulk of this first meeting was spent on discussion about how the board will function, the committees that will have to be formed and other housekeeping items.
Who? What?
The board is composed of five volunteer members: Aaron Calderon, Zander Bolyanatz, Gail Oliver, Shama Newton and Rowan Wymark. Calderon, a veteran of the US Army who is the manager of clinic operations at Presbyterian Healthcare Services, was elected Chair. Rowan Wymark, who has served on the Valley Area Command Community Policing Council for seven years, as well as the Downtown Neighborhoods Association and the Homeless Advisory Council,was elected as Vice Chair.
Bolyanatz, a senior project manager, has volunteered with local coops, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and served as an assistant cheer coach in the Chicago area. Oliver has served on the board of the Gordon Bernell Charter School at the Albuquerque Metropolitan Detention Center and Peanut Butter and Jelly Family Services. Newton works in mental health and is the Group Living Director at Sequel Youth and Family Services.
Earlier this week, the City Council appointed Diane McDermott as Executive Director after serving in an interim director position since the former director Edward Harness resigned in October 2021 amid controversy, after the then board posted the position he held without asking him to reapply.
McDermott told the new board that there was a backlog of 73 complaints of different levels of force. She said there are 9 officer involved shootings ready for review with another four that could be ready for review shortly. The new board asked questions about procedures, training and how to schedule the reviews.
Chief’s update
Chief Harold Medina attended the first meeting. Addressing the board, he said that the department, even with the recent DWI news, had a successful year (2023) fighting crime.
“We maintained over a 90% clearance rate on homicides,” he said. “When I took over as Chief, we were averaging about 54 to 55 % clearance rate in homicides. That’s bringing a lot of justice to the families that are out there.”
He went on to say that the department saw a reduction of about 20% in homicides along with a reduction of about 40% in the number of robberies in the city. To help curb the growing problem of speeding and road rage and racing he said officers wrote about 79,000 traffic violations in 2023, not including automated citations. Auto theft, he said, went down by 9% and a double digit increase was seen in cleared felony warrants.
“We have started two of our biggest Academy classes in the last decade, we just graduated an academy class with 52 cadets. We had 54 more cadets start two weeks ago and we actually had no people drop out,” Medina said about the current enrollment at the police academy. He also said that there would be someone from APD legal and the academy at their meeting to provide information and answer any questions.
The Civilian Police Oversight Agency Board (CPOA) is an independent group of civilian appointed members who are not part of either the city administration or City Council. The agency independently investigates civilian complaints and reviews use of force cases. The City of Albuquerque, and its police department, is required under the 2014 settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice after the police department was found to have a pattern and practice of excessive force. The make up of the CPOA has undergone several revisions over the last 10 years since the mandate. The CPOA Board meets on the second Thursday of each month.