APD chief, FBI comment on DWI unit investigation
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – An Albuquerque police officer put on leave Friday in connection to the alleged corruption has decided to remain silent.
Both Lieutenant Matthew Chavez and Lieutenant Kyle Curtis were supposed to speak with APD investigators Tuesday. But Lieutenant Curtis put in for retirement Monday night.
As we wait to see how this plays out criminally, there’s a lot going on internally at APD.
For the last year, Albuquerque Police Chief Medina said they’ve been combing through DWI cases involving their officers and attorney Thomas Clear III, as well as video evidence from those stops or arrests.
Medina said you can bet there are more officers involved than we know of right now. He said through the department’s internal process they discovered an allegation like what we know about the scheme dating back to 2003.
Newly-filed federal court documents are exposing the inner working of an alleged DWI corruption scheme involving at least one local defense attorney and officers at our state’s three largest police departments.
A dozen Albuquerque police officers are on the growing list.
“What do you say to the community, people who are thinking how on earth can we trust this police department?”
“I think they need to look at where we are right now,” said Medina.
Medina said a special DWI task force, led by Commander Hartsock, is handling the administrative investigation. Going through cases and looking at every officer who had interactions with attorney Thomas Clear.
“At the time this occurred, I looked, and I immediately recognized I had a lot of people in Internal Affairs with a DWI history, including the major over the unit, the commander over the unit, I knew that. And I stated from the very beginning I would leave no stone unturned, and that is still my commitment to the city,” said Medina.
The first to be charged related to the corruption scheme, paralegal Rick Mendez, said he worked with almost the entire APD DWI unit for a period. Chief Medina blames many systematic failures for allowing the scheme to span more than a decade.
“Is there more to put on these people who are in a supervisory position.”
“As for the latest supervisor, we’ve got no indications that he’s involved,” said Chief Medina.
“When you think of a supervisor, you think about someone who should have a grasp on the people they’re watching.”
“He was out there doing DWI’s every day when maybe, he should have been out there supervising his squad every day. It’s kind of hard to fault someone for working hard and being out there to make a difference,” said Medina.
There are a bunch of reform efforts happening right now at the department to prevent this kind of misconduct in the future. Several agencies are putting together an official process to notify and track when an officer doesn’t show up to court.
New Mexico State Police Chief Troy Weisler issued the following statement:
“The behavior outlined in the recently released federal documents is disgusting and has no place in law enforcement. If we determine members of the State Police were involved, they will be dealt with swiftly and decisively. This is an evolving situation, and we will evaluate new information as it comes in; however, at this time, we have no evidence to believe that our officers are involved. We will continue to conduct internal audits and reviews as well as cooperate fully with the FBI as they carry out their investigation.”
The damage a few police officers have done to the badge isn’t lost on federal investigators.
When asked about why the public should trust them when this scheme has gone on for years, FBI Special Agent In-Charge Raul Bujanda and U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Alex Uballez drew a clear line. They said that, while they’re a part of the community, there is a distinction between the feds investigating the case – and city and state operators that allowed this scheme to go undetected for years.
“It’s because it’s our job to do the right thing, right? It’s because we are the ones pursuing this, 15 year near, scheme. It’s because, that’s what the public needs, frankly,” Uballez said in regard to why people should trust them.
Bujanda said the most shocking part of the RICO case is that it’s cops operating this scheme. He said that hurts the image of everyone carrying a badge.
“When that trust is broken, it’s hard to rebuild this. These individuals, these bad apples that decided to take the law into their own hands, have hurt that trust. And all I can say it’s going to take us time is going to take results,” Bujanda said.
We asked, “what would the results in this case look like to help earn the trust back?”
“It’s people paying for the crimes that they have committed. It’s these law enforcement officers that stop being a law enforcement officer the very moment they decided to take a dollar from someone because they wanted to go ahead and enrich themselves, instead of doing the right thing,” Bujanda said.
Uballez, a Biden appointee, could soon be out the door with President Donald Trump taking office again – so why now for all of these dominoes to fall?
Uballez and Bujanda addressed that here: