The APD Forward campaign has had a busy couple of weeks. We recently held meetings with Mayor Richard Berry, Chief Gordon Eden and the federal monitor overseeing implementation of the consent decree, Dr. James Ginger. In those meetings, we learned that the first report from the monitoring team is expected this fall, and it will be voluminous – Dr. Ginger indicated that it will be hundreds of pages. When it is released, the APD Forward legal committee will be ready to assess its contents and provide a detailed analysis to APD Forward supporters and the general public about the state of APD’s progress toward achieving the mandatory reforms outlined in the consent decree.
We also learned that:
- APD has revised 88 of its policies and Dr. Ginger’s team has started reviewing the new policies to determine whether they comply with the consent decree (and Eden agreed to provide APD Forward with a list of the revised policies);
- Dr. Ginger’s team is launching a public website to disseminate information gleaned from the monitoring process;
- Dr. Ginger’s team has created the compliance plan required by the consent decree, setting up quantitative and qualitative guidelines for each of the 297 provisions in the decree.
We will be following up with the Mayor, the Chief, and Dr. Ginger soon to track the status of these and other relevant items.
At the same time, APD Forward is working with youth organizers to gather stories from young people about their interactions with police officers. These organizers are planning a town hall meeting in the near future to give Albuquerque’s youth a platform for discussing the impact of policing on their lives and how the Albuquerque Police Department can improve its relations with young people. Stay tuned for details about this exciting project.
It’s an exciting time. When you have a moment, contact the Mayor and your City Councilor and let them know how important it is to you that they follow through on reforming our troubled police department.
Thank you for all that you do to make Albuquerque a better place to live.