Albuquerque’s senseless approach to police accountability

Are Albuquerque’s police to be held accountable or not? Over the span of nearly a decade James Ginger has been paid handsomely to “monitor” reforms to Albuquerque’s Police Department. The idea is to provide accountability and oversight for APD’s reform process. Police accountability has been a watchword on the left leading so far as to left-wing voices here (as they have nationally) to call for “defunding the police.”

Sadly, the left’s push for police accountability seems highly situational. In fact, when Police Chief Harold Medina caused a near-fatal accident, the Albuquerque City Council on a 5-4 vote (with all the “progressives” and Democrats joined by Councilor Brook Bassan opposed) killed a proposal to have an outside third party investigate the incident. So, instead of an outside agency like New Mexico State Police or Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office investigating Medina’s dangerous behavior and crash we’ll get an internal investigation carried out by APD.

Jacob Sullum of Reason takes a closer look at the situation and ongoing concerns about Medina’s behavior both during the crash incident and in other areas (like the DWI scandal) in an excellent article.