Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ABQJustice
APD Brutality
The Albuquerque Police Department has a long history of violence.
KILLED
100
APD has
146
87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
Lawsuits totalled
2X 8X $23
and
higher than
higher than
Chicago
NYPD
million
DEADLY FORCE
since 2014
- DOJ report
70
60
50
40 34
30
28
20
10
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14
ABQJustice
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ABQJustice | March 2015
Findings
1. APD systematically engages in racially motivated forms of policing targeting people of color,
particularly Native Americans.
2. APD engages in violence against women, including sexual violence.
1. Launched its own investigation of police violence by conducting field interviews in locations
around Albuquerque from September 2014 to
February 2015.
2. Convened a Peoples Tribunal on Police Brutality on March 14, 2015 to publicly present and
consider the results of the field investigation, and
to release a report of its findings.
Expectations
The ABQJustice investigation shows that the police oversight agencies, in place from 1997 to the
present, have failed to resolve the systemic problems at APD. ABQJustice believes this is because
the authority of these agencies is limited to an
advisory capacity.
The solutions outlined in this report call for:
1. An independent agency with the authority to
discipline officers and make policy changes.
Background
That report, released on April 10, 2014, concluded that the Albuquerque Police Department
engages in a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing and routinely uses unjustified
lethal and non-lethal force.2
While the report confirmed many of the criticisms made by family members and social justice
and civil rights organizations in Albuquerque,
it stopped short of conducting a comprehensive
analysis of the problem. The report limited its examination of police violence to the years 2009
2011, largely ignoring a much longer pattern of
unjustified use of force by APD. In addition, the
report failed to consider patterns of racial bias,
or other forms of prejudice, in the patterns of
unconstitutional policing by APD.
The problem of police violence, and the pattern
of official disinterest in resolving the problem,
has a much longer history than described by the
DOJ. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, community organizations, such as the Black Berets,
confronted a pattern of racially motivated police
violence directed at Chicano youth. This pattern
continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Between
1987 and 1991, APD officers killed 15 people, a
number that exceeded fatal shootings over the
same period in Tucson, Austin, El Paso, Colorado Springs and Tulsa combined.
Introduction
ABQJustice formed in 2014 as a community-based group of activists and residents concerned with poverty, inequality and police brutality in Albuquerque. ABQJustice has worked
in coalition with social justice and civil rights
organizations to confront violence, racism and
injustice in Albuquerque.
Methodology
Findings
Our investigation confirms many of the conclusions of the investigation conducted by the Civil
Rights Division of the Department of Justice. We
found that APD engages in unconstitutional policing, and the frequent, unjustified use of non-lethal
force. The Department of Justice held a series of
three community meetings during its investigation,
but it did not engage in street outreach. Our street
interviews provided a method to capture a pattern
and practice of unconstitutional policing that the
DOJ missed. We find that APD targets people of
color, particularly Native Americans. It systematically engages in racially motivated forms of policing. We find that APD targets homeless people
and routinely violates their constitutional rights.
These patterns of targeting frequently include the
use of unjustified force. In addition, we find that
APD engages in violence against women, including
and most troubling, sexual violence. These findings
confirm many of the claims leveled against APD by
civil rights organizations in briefs in federal court
discussed above.
A recent national study on police sexual misconduct by Bowling Green University found that
police officers were arrested for committing crimes
548 times between 2005-2007. More than 16%
of those arrests included charges for sex-related
crimes.11
APD officers charged a White male for panhandling at the Family Dollar. He told ABQJustice
investigators that a police officer handcuffed him
and then hit him in the face. And now Im going
to get a $500 fine for something I didnt do.
A Navajo man in his 30s and a community-college student at CNM described constant harassment. I go to school, CNM, Im not in trouble
10
Paula Mejia, Why Cops Get Away With Rape, Newsweek, July 9, 2014 http://www.newsweek.com/police-sexual-assault-rape-justice-258130
10
PERF, Review of Use of Force in the Albuquerque Police Department, June 23, 2011. https://
d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/apdforward/pages/33/
attachments/original/1406915102/PERF_Rep ort_(2011).
pdf?1406915102
13
Findings Conclusion
The interviews conducted during the course
of this investigation show a pattern of unconstitutional policing at APD. This investigation
confirms many of the conclusions of previous
11
Expectations
This section describes changes in police policies and practices we believe are immediately
necessary to address the problems described in
this report. We use the word expectations in
order to make clear that what we describe below
is not intended as a comprehensive solution to
the problem. The increasingly militarized and
racialized policing of poor communities will not
end overnight. Rather the expectations we describe here are intended to contribute to creating
the conditions necessary for community-based
policing.
In the words of scholar Robin D.G. Kelley, community-based policing requires radically new
modes of training. Employees and volunteers
would have to attend intensive workshops on
race, gender, sexuality, domestic abuse, rape,
violence, and inequality, among other things, and
the institutions of public safety would have to reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the communities they serve and to maintain an equal gender balance in all areas of work. They would be
required to reside in the neighborhood in which
they work and to conduct a thorough study of
that neighborhood in all of its historical, social,
economic, and psychological dimensionsa little
like writing an honors thesis before graduating
EXPECTATION #8 The Albuquerque Police Department limit promotion to candidates with expertise in crisis intervention, who have advanced
degrees in social service or allied disciplines,
and/or who come to APD from departments
nationally recognized as a leader in community-based policing.
_______________________________________
14
See Loraine Burger, Firefighter creates live-streaming body cam with reliable storage solution, v,
October 28, 2014 http://www.policeone.com/police-products/body-cameras/articles/7747819- Firefighter-creates-live-streaming-body-cam-with-reliable-storage-solution/
15
14
Appendix
After a 16-month investigation of the Albuquerque Police Department, the federal government
reports that its officers routinely violated the
Constitutional rights of residents, unjustly beating them, shocking them with tasers, and even
shooting them dead. Twenty-one fatal shootings
were reviewed. Officers were not justified under
federal law in using deadly force in the majority of those incidents, the report states. Albuquerque police officers shot and killed civilians
who did not pose an imminent threat of serious
bodily harm or death to the officers or others.
This is immoral, not merely a flawed procedural
paradigm! It violates religious and human sensitivities! It is abhorrent and reprehensible by any
faith traditions awareness! May I be so bold as to
say that this is blatantly sinful behavior rooted in
a disregard of human dignity, a sense of justice, a
lack of grace and kind regard for the vulnerable,
the ill or the disturbed. Power run amok with
pride, cruelty, and disdain.
do not find it hard to conclude this. One unarmed man was shot through the chest as he lay
motionless on his back. No police officer has yet
to been prosecuted for unlawful killing.