Looking Ahead to a Post-DOJ APD

This week on New Mexico in Focus, we explore the future for the Albuquerque Police Department, now that an 11-year, federally mandated reform effort has ended.  

Police Chief Harold Medina strikes a reassuring tone, telling NMiF host Nash Jones: “We’re not going back to where we were… We’ve built a strong department that has accountability, that believes in constitutional policing and that is lowering crime.” Albuquerque City Councilor Nichole Rogers acknowledges that the city’s legislative branch must now play a larger role in ensuring accountability. 

Albuquerque-based civil rights lawyer Mark Fine also returns to talk about some of the under-discussed benefits of the reform effort — with transparency at APD topping that list. And we end this week’s episode with Steve and Renetta Torres, who lost their son, Christopher, in 2011 when two plainclothes APD detectives jumped a wall into the family’s back yard and shot him three times in the back. “There’s strength in numbers,” Renetta Torres tells Executive Producer Jeff Proctor about the couple’s decade-and-a-half fight for change. 

Host: Nash Jones 

Segments: 
APD Chief Medina: Department Is ‘Not Going Back’ 
Correspondent: Nash Jones 
Guest: Harold Medina, Chief, Albuquerque Police Department  

City Councilor Says Legislative Branch Must Hold APD Accountable 
Correspondent: Nash Jones 
Guest: Nichole Rogers, Albuquerque City Councilor, District 6 

Civil Rights Lawyer on Maintaining the ‘Scaffolding’ for Reform 
Correspondent: Jeff Proctor 
Guest: Mark Fine, Civil Rights Lawyer 

APD Shooting Victim’s Parents Offer Message to Other Families 
Correspondent: Jeff Proctor 
Guests: 
Renetta Torres, Son Killed by APD in 2011 
Steve Torres, Son Killed by APD in 2011