This “pilot project” is tantamount to union busting and privatization of law enforcement, pure plain and simple. https://www.abqjournal.com/…/plan-uses-retired-police-to-fi… What was not mentioned in the Albuquerque Journal article is the original legislation identified a private security company that would have been paid the $1.3 million, with that company having ties to City Councilor Brad Winter.
For three years Mayor Berry and Chief of Police Gordon Eden have failed intheir attempts to get the New Mexico legislature to change the law to allow “double-dipping” where retired cops could return to work and get paid their salaries and be paid their retirement at the same time. This feckless pair just won’t take no for an answer and now they have come up with this scam to get their way to hire retired cops and are getting help from two equally feckless City Councilors to go along with it.
Paying $1.3 million dollars to a private security company for 25 retired police officers to help with law enforcement investigation tasks amounts to $52,000 per employee. Starting salaries for APD sworn is about the same! This is law enforcement work that should be done by less expensive means such as hiring more APD Public Safety aides trained by the academy to work the cases, but the Mayor has no intent on increasing the size of city personnel.
The pilot project is fraught with problems, including prosecutions being jeopardized when evidence is excluded for a broken “chain of custody” with evidence gathered and processed by non-certified law enforcement personnel.