ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – For years, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) has been working to comply with a federal settlement agreement over the department’s use of force. Now, APD said they’ve reached a key milestone.
As part of the agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, APD has been working to review a backlog of more than 600 incidents where police used force. Now, they have finished that review process after several years of work and with the help of an outside team.
“The decision to hire an outside team helped us complete these investigations in a timely manner and position APD to complete our responsibilities under the settlement agreement,” the city’s Superintendent of Police Reform Eric Garcia said in a press release. “Just as important, we got the job done without pulling officers off Albuquerque’s streets to conduct these investigations.”
No disciplinary actions against officers are coming out of the review process; APD said the backlog had already exceeded the time limit for disciplinary actions. Instead, the department says the data that comes from the hundreds of cases will help with officer training moving forward.
