The Numbers Game - APD Style

If at first you don't succeed, change the goal - that's what APD did this past week when confronted with the certainty that they could not, would not reach their goal of 1,100 officers by January 1.

"They did not meet my expectations or my direction," the mayor said Wednesday. "There will be some interesting meetings next week. Having said that, it's hard to grow a police department with the highest standards in the state. And this isn't like growing other departments (in city government). These people have badges and guns.

"But I've always, always told my chiefs that it's more important to grow it right than it is to grow it quickly. You pay for years when you make that mistake."

-ABQ Journal (Subscription)

Anyone who has been paying any attention over the last two years could have predicted APD's failure. It has been apparent that APD has been attempting to hide their actual force strength since the 2005 election when Mayor Marty set goals of 1,000 then 1,100 officers by January 1, 2008. APD has steadfastly refused to publish a list of sworn officers and their positions within the organization.

Our Eyes hold that they're counting everyone with a pulse and a badge and the badge may be optional. The number of officers on the street has been an issue for some time. APD's number has ranged from a low of 857 two years ago to a high of 1,033 claimed by DC Castro just last September. It's clear that it's almost impossible to take the 5th floor at their word; which ultimately is at the heart of our crime problem.

"A lot of people will come up and say: 'We need 1,500 officers; we need 2,000 officers,' '' Castro said. "But there is no mathematical equation that says we need X number of officers. We use our crime rates and other factors to determine that.

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

Normally we'd agree with the Deputy Chief but there's just one problem - Albuquerque's crime rate is on the increase in two major areas, property crime and violent crime. There are a lot of reasons for our crime problems and a lack of sworn officers is just one of them.

According to the data, the metro area per capita ranks in the top 10 percent for violent crimes, which include murder, rape and robbery. And the metro area ranks in the top 13 percent for property crime, such as auto theft and burglaries.

- ABQ Journal (Subscription)

The impact is huge. More than 5,000 vehicles were stolen and more than 6,000 homes were burgled last year.

Each day, an average 15 autos were stolen and 17 homes or businesses were hit.

-ABQ Journal (Subscription)

If Albuquerque's crime rates were decreasing we'd tend to agree with Castro, but the stats show an alarming increase. Currently (assuming you accept APD's 998 number which we don't), APD has 1.81 officers per thousand assuming a population of 550,000. The national average for cities over 250,000 is 2.8 officers per thousand (FBI Crime in the United States).

The fact is it doesn't matter how many officers APD has if they are able to effectively police their jurisdiction. Since that doesn't seem to be the case, we'd believe that the 5th floor would be doing everything in its power to make sure that we lose as few experienced officers as possible.

Instead we've seen what can only be characterized as an exodus of experienced officers losing over 10% of APD's manpower in just 2 years with 62 retirees last year and at least 55 retiring this year. Our Eyes tell us that officers who are fully vested are leaving even though they would rather stay. In other words, they're voting with their feet; choosing to leave rather than continue to have to fight crime on our streets and an administration that just doesn't seem to get it.

So what's going on? If you've read many stories about APD over the last year, it's plain to see that they've got a problem. There are the standard issues of pay and retirement, but there also seems to be a serious division between the brass on the 5th floor and the rank and file in the field.

Lincoln once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand" and so it is with our police department. As long as they keep playing the numbers game, it will be impossible for the public or the rank and file officers to trust APD's management and their house will continue to be divided.

We are already one of the top 10 most violent cities and we are seeing "unexpected" officer attrition. As citizens of Albuquerque, we are being placed in more and more danger by and administration that would rather play politics than do their jobs. Eventually, their house will collapse. Unfortunately, it will fall on those who it was designed to protect.

----- Correction -----
Sometimes our fingers out run our spell check... such is the case above when we typed loose when we intended lose. It has been corrected above.

The First Step Toward Recovery

A summary of yesterday's Journal article outlining the problems over at APD could be: Response times- up, officers available to take calls for service - down, apologies - up, morale - down, and excuses - waaaaay up. We want to point out here that many of the problems over at APD are not new and neither are the excuses, but they are problems none the less and need to be addressed.

Manpower levels at APD have been an issue for some time now. Councilor Brad Winter, while running against the current head of APD - Martin Chavez, made it an issue in the last election (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required). There's nothing in Sunday's article that makes one believe that APD has addressed the situation, nor is there any indication that they have come up with a viable plan to correct it.

APD's claimed strength is 998 officers with (according to the Journal) 43.5% of those officers available to take calls. That's about 434 officers ready to come to your aid when your being robbed, beat, or criminally victimized. Our Eyes tell us that the bid number (434) is actually 409 and that the actual total number of sworn officers available is closer to 800. None of the above numbers can actually be verified because APD is keeping them locked away on the 5th floor where neither the Journal nor City Councilor Brad Winter can get a look at them.

(Sidebar)
The Almighty Marty (no doubt in an attempt to look more gubernatorial) announced an open government initiative last week. The Journal ran a story just this morning heaping praise on the mayor for his proposals (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required). We've got a suggestion for the aspiring governor... produce an APD manpower roster (sworn and not) complete with assignments for public review. If you're going to push for open government, try opening up APD.
(End Sidebar)

APD is simply asking all of us to take them at their word, which is particularly troubling considering that all of the empirical evidence suggests that they're playing with the numbers. In addition, APD spokesman John Walsh would like us to believe that they cannot account for calls for service taken by the 56.5% of the force that make up APD's specialized units. Are we really to believe that over half of APD's officers and their activities cannot be accounted for? If that is true it's a sign of colossal incompetence.

Our Eyes on the other hand aren't buying spokesman Walsh's assertions. Any officer that responds to a call for service is tracked and reports are generated... as they should be. The Eyes have it that APD just doesn't want to admit that their specialized units rarely volunteer to take a call for service and if they show at all, it's usually in a backup role. The Eyes went so far as to call Walsh's assertion a... uh, shall we say, falsehood.

We can sit around and argue numbers all day long, but that doesn't change the fact that APD will take longer to get to you when you really need them. All of the excuses - like having to respond to burglary calls, 10-44's (accidents without injuries), and animal in danger calls - don't change the fact that we are not getting the police protection that we are paying for. Chief Schultz maintains that if they didn't have to respond to all of those calls that response times would improve. That's like saying if they didn't have to enforce the law, there'd be more time to enforce the law.

The fact of the matter is that APD has a number of problems and they're doing everything in their power not to admit that they've got a problem. If you take a gander at a few of the posts on this site, you'll quickly identify a number of comments from various readers that can only be officers (hopefully off-duty for a number of reasons). Morale is obviously down, manpower levels are not what they should be, and officers are feeling the need to apologize to people when they finally arrive at a call.

It's obvious that, as APOA President Ron Alivas said, "[officers are] coming to us telling us they are getting their butt kicked out there." If that truly is the case, then they are losing as a department and we are losing as a community. It's time that the 5th and 11th floors take the first step toward recovery... admit you've got a problem.