EDITOR’S NOTE: This blog article contains an in depth analysis of 911 Call statistics and APD response times in conjunction with the city’s crime statistics in order to emphasize the difficulty that an audit will present.
On November 2, 2021 Louie Sanchez was elected the District 1 City Councilor defeating incumbent Lan Sena who had been appointed city councilor by Mayor Tim Keller after the death of longtime city councilor Ken Sanchez. Louie Sanchez was sworn into office on January 1 for a 4 year term to represent the West side area of the City. Sanchez is a retired APD cop with 26 years of service. After retiring, Sanchez became an insurance salesman. His election to the city council race was the first time he has ever run for office. Sanchez did have some limited exposure to politics having served as the officer in charge of Mayor Marty Chavez security detail and work directly out of the Mayor’s Office.
HIGH PROFILE NEWS COVERAGE
On April 7, KOAT Target 7 ran a lead story entitled “Albuquerque City Councilor Louie Sanchez concerned about 911 response times”. On the April 13, the Albuquerque Journal on its front page above the fold with his photo ran a story with the headline “City Councilor Sanchez questions response times of APD officers”. Both stories involve Sanchez making a 911 Priority 1 call on March 6 along with his history of making 911 emergency calls. According to both news reports, over the past 10 months, Louie Sanchez has called the APD 911 emergency dispatch nearly a dozen times to report crimes or occurrences he has seen outside his Allstate Insurance Agency office on Central and 61st.
The links to both news reports are here:
https://www.abqjournal.com/2487806/city-councilor-questions-911-response.html
PATTERN OF 911 CALLS
Since being sworn in to office on January 1, Sanchez has continued making 911 calls but now brings them up during City Council meetings to complain how they are being handled. Sanchez is asserting that his calls are examples of APD mishandling, or just not responding, to 911 Priority 1 calls and downgrading the calls, his calls in particular, so APD does not have to respond. APD is questioning his motives. Sanchez is now demanding an audit of APD priority 1 calls.
At the epicenter of both news reports is that Sanchez is demanding to know why APD police officers are not immediately being dispatched to high priority calls. His March 26 call was about a man threatening or maybe hitting another with a gun. According to Sanchez, he believes 911 calls are being downgraded from what should be considered the highest priority, or a Priority 1 which are felonies that are in progress or there is an immediate threat to life or property to a lower priority call such as a Priority 5 Call, which is where a crime has already occurred and there “is no suspect at or near the scene and no threat of personal injury, loss of life or property.”
CALL FOR AUDIT
Since taking office, Sanchez has been extremely critical of APD Chief Harold Medina and uses City Council meetings to raise issues as he attempts to excert dominance over APD management. He frequently brings up his 911 and calls to 242-COPS at council meetings as well as his history with the police department. After the April 4 City council meeting, Louie Sanchez prompted the city council services to request the city’s Office of Internal Audit to conduct an audit of 911 emergency response times. Nicole Kelley, the city auditor said the department is determining what the scope and objective of that review would be.
THE MARCH 6 EMERGENCY 911 CALL
According to the Target 7 report, Louie Sanchez made a 911 call on the afternoon of Saturday March 26. The transcript of the 911 call is as follows:
“Sanchez: 61st and Central. I’m across the street in the building
Dispatch: Which corner are they on?
Sanchez: They are at the pit stop 61st and Central.
Dispatch: Which corner is that on?
Sanchez: He beat a guy up with a but stock of a gun and pointed it.”
The dispatcher asks Councilor Sanchez if he wants to meet with police, he says no.
Dispatch: If nobody wants to talk to officers then…
Sanchez: No, you need to get the gun off the street, ma’am. There he goes. He is walking away. He just pointed the gun at somebody else.
Dispatch: Where’s the victim?
Sanchez: Are you going to get it? You guys waste too much time.
Four minutes into the call the dispatcher issues a “be on the lookout for the suspect.”
Sanchez: Are you serious? You’re not going to come over here and deal with it. You’re just going to be on the lookout.
About five minutes into the call dispatch hung up on Sanchez without letting him know whether officers were called to the scene.
According to police logs reviewed by Target 7, an APD officer arrived in the area to check out what was going on with a reported man with a gun approximately 50 minutes after Sanchez made the call and after he talked with the dispatcher’s supervisor. Sanchez said he believes officers were not dispatched until after he called a supervisor complaining.
In the Target 7 interview, Sanchez had this to say:
“As far as I know, no one even checked the area. As far as I know, an officer never came to talk to me together [for] further information. … I hope that the police department is not avoiding or diminishing calls to keep the crime stats down.”
In both news stories, APD Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos was asked about the March 6 call made by Sanchez. In both reports, Gallegos said the call should have been considered a Priority 1 or Priority 2 call since there was an allegation that a gun was involved. Instead, the call-taker told Sanchez she was setting up a “be on the lookout”, which Sanchez took exception to and essentially demanded more.
Gallegos did say APD officers were dispatched to the scene about 50 minutes after Sanchez’s call. According to Gallegos, when officers went to the scene all they found were two people sitting in the shade who said they had been there a few minutes and hadn’t seen anything suspicious. Gallegos said when officers reviewed area security camera footage they did not have a clear view of the gas station where Sanchez said the incident took place. Gallegos did say the security camera showed at least 4 different police cars in the area at various times on a busy street.
Despite whether Sanchez was willing to speak with a responding officer, APD Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said the dispatcher made an error. Gallegos had this to say:
“Ideally, they would have dispatched officers, gone to the scene … Ideally, they would have victim information, or they could have met with Mr. Sanchez, to get more information … if there’s someone out there on the property, they could formulate a plan and go deal with it. … They should have dispatched an officer right away and that type of call. … The director [of the 911 Dispatch Center] did speak to the call taker after the incident, talked with that person and mandated some additional training to make sure they were aware of what they should have been doing. ”
APD Spokesman Gallegos added that he thought Sanchez may have confused the call-taker by saying that he didn’t want an officer to contact him and then saying he did. According to Gallegos:
“If the victim [is] not there and they don’t know if a victim wants to press charges or a witness isn’t contacted, the officer can’t just show up and take the gun from someone’s hands if they’re not sure that they committed a crime or have suspicion.”
Sanchez for his part told the Journal reporter that when he told the call-taker “no” about an officer contacting him he meant “that’s not the way that’s supposed to be taking place,” not that he wouldn’t talk to an officer.
PATTERN OF CALLS USING A SECURED PHONE LINE
Logs provided to the media by APD show Sanchez called 911 or 242-COPS on 11 different days between June 2021 and the end of March referencing fights he’s seen, or suspected drug dealing and prostitution. According to dispatch logs, Police were dispatched to at least 3 of those calls. In some cases, Sanchez told the operator it was already too late to dispatch a police officer and expresses disbelief that no one had answered the phone when he called. Sanchez acknowledged that he has called more frequently in the past several months and says that’s because a lot of incidents have happened in front of his office and Sanchez said had this to say:
“I witnessed a fight in progress with a stabbing, I witnessed individuals throwing rocks at each other during heavy traffic.”
APD Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos took issue with the number of calls made by Sanchez and declined to say whether APD believe Sanchez’s calls are legitimate. Gallegos said:
“I think I counted 10 calls to 911 or 242-COPS. [On a couple of the calls] you can hear [Sanchez] arguing with the call-taker. … It is a pattern, the counselor calling 911 or saying he is going to call 911 and then bringing it up at city council meetings. So it’s a little confusing, I guess, as to what his goals are. … If they’re all legitimate emergencies, that’s quite a bit for that period of time. … The concern is we don’t want him tying up the line for anyone else who does have a legitimate emergency. It’s impossible for me to know whether they were and what his intentions were. … I think something like [Sanchez’ motives] … would have to be more properly vetted and answered by an outside entity like maybe the inspector general.”
Gallegos also took issue with the phone line Sanchez used and said Sanchez called a secure line that is supposed to only be used by the Chief. Sanchez countered that saying “I’ve called that line for 26 years as a police officer and I still have that in my phone.” Its more likely than not that Sanchez did not have the number his entire 26 years as a police officer and was in fact given the number when he was in charge of the Mayor’s personal security detail and he kept the number stored in his personal phone.
Target 7 did ask Councilor Sanchez what his goal was in making all the calls and he said he wants to make sure citizens get a response when they call police, especially on a 911 priority call.
APD ADDS TWO PRIORITY CALL CATEGORIES TO REDUCE RESPONSE TIMES
On March 6, 2019, APD announced that it expanded the way it was dispatching police officers to 911 calls from a 3 priority call list to a 5 priority call list. A major goal of adding the two new types of priority call to the system is to determine what calls do and do not require a police officer. APD stressed that every call is different and depending on the circumstances of that call the level of priority can always change. The single most compelling reason for the change is that it was taking way too long to dispatch police officers after a call was received. Police were being dispatched to calls where an officer was not always needed.
Priority calls are evaluated as they are received by Communications personnel and categorized in one of the following 5 priorities:
PRIORITY 1 call is a felony that is in progress or there is an immediate threat to life or property. These are calls where the immediate presence of the police is essential to have life, prevent serious injury, or to arrest a violent felon.
PRIORITY 2 call is where there is no immediate threat to life of property. Misdemeanor crimes in progress are priority 2 calls
PRIORITY 3 call is any calls where there are no threats to life or property were priority any call in which a crime has already occurred with no suspects at or near the scene.
PRIORITY 4 call is a routine response call that require the presence of police, but time is not critical.
PRIORITY 5 is a where a crime has already occurred and there “is no suspect at or near the scene and no threat of personal injury, loss of life or property.”
Under the new system, the public are asked to go to the telephone reporting unit to make a report and APD will not dispatch officers unless it meets some other criteria elevating the call. For the lower priority calls where an officer isn’t needed, callers have three ways to file a report: online, over the phone, or at any police substation.
In announcing the change in policy, APD Public Information Officer Gilbert Gallegos had this to say:
“What we want to do is get officers to the scene of a call as quickly as possible for the most urgent calls, and by that I mean calls where there is a life-threatening situation. … Basically we’re adapting to the situation where we’re trying to make the system much more efficient and much more effective “.
Click to access analyzing-calls-for-service-to-the-albuquerque-police-department..pdf
NEWS INVESTGATIVE REPORTS REVEALS DRAMATIC INCREASES IN APD RESPONSE TIMES
The time it takes for APD to respond to priority 1 calls, which are calls for a felony that is in progress or there is an immediate threat to life or property, has a major impact on increasing physical injury to victims or callers. There have been news reports on APD response times that merit mentioning.
KOAT TV TARGET 7 REPORT
Two years ago , on February 20, 2020, KOAT TV Target 7 reported on an investigation into the Albuquerque Police Department’s (APD’s) response times. The report revealed an alarming level of time it took APD to respond to 911 emergency calls and that there was a 93% increase in APD 911 response times since 2011 with a 48 minutes average time of arrival. It was reported that it takes APD 23 minutes longer to get to an emergency call than it did 8 years ago. There has been an astonishing 93% increase since 2011 with response times getting worse every year since. In 2011, the average response time to all calls, whether it was a life or death emergency or a minor traffic crash was 25 minutes. In 2019, that time period spiked to 48 minutes in the average response time.
https://www.koat.com/article/apd-response-times-continue-to-climb/31028667
KOB INVESTGATIVE REPORT
On August 11, 2021, KOB 4 did an investigative report on APD’s response times for Priority 1 calls and requested the response times for Priority 1 calls over the last few years. Priority 1 calls include shootings, stabbings, armed robberies, sexual and aggravated assaults, domestic violence with weapons involved and home invasions. According to the data, the time it takes officers to get to a crime scene stayed relatively consistent between January 2018 to May 2021 and was roughly between 9 and 12 minutes. Data obtained did reveal drastic differences in recent years. In 2018, clearing a scene ranged from an hour to an hour and 12 minutes. Fast forward to 2021 and APD was averaging more than 2 hours to write reports, gather evidence and interview witnesses, a full hour longer than three years ago.
https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/abq-4ward-examining-apds-response-times/6204745/
APD PERFORMANCE BASED BUDGET
The City of Albuquerque budget is a “performance based” budget. Each year, all 27 city departments submit statistics reflecting job performance to justify the individual department budgets being requested for funding.
On April 1, the Mayor Tim Keller Administration released the 2022-2023 annual budget that once enacted by the city council will be for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2022 and will end June 30, 2023. The overall budget submitted for review and approval of the Albuquerque City council is for $1.4 Billion. $841.8 represents the general fund spending and it is an increase of $127 million, or 17.8%, over the current year’s budget of $1.2 Billion.
The Albuquerque Police Department (APD) continues to be the largest city budget out of 27 departments. The fiscal year 2023 proposed General Fund budget is $255.4 million, which represents an increase of 14.7% or $32.8 million above the fiscal year 2022 level. The fiscal year 2022-2023 proposed General Fund budget for APD is $255.4 million, which represents an increase of 14.7% or $32.8 million above the FY/22 level. The proposed General Fund civilian count is 665 and sworn count is 1,100 for a total of 1,765 full-time positions.
APD’s general fund budget of $255.4 provides funding for 1,100 full time sworn police officers, with the department fully funded for 1,100 sworn police for the past 3 years. However, there are currently 888 sworn officers in APD. The APD budget provides funding for 1,100 in order to accommodate growth.
The link to the proposed 244-page 2022-2023 budget it here:
https://www.cabq.gov/dfa/documents/fy23-proposed-final-web-version.pdf
APD PERFORMANCE MEASURES REPORTED IN 2022-2023 GENERAL FUND BUDGET
The 911 Emergency Dispatch Center is a 24/7 center that has operators and dispatchers located in the Emergency Operations Center North of the Albuquerque Fire and Rescue Department Academy on the Westside. It has upwards of 60 full time operators, dispatchers and support staff divided into 3 separates 8 hour shifts. All 911 emergency calls are recorded.
The 2021 approved budget and the 2022-2023 proposed budget for APD contains the following performance measures:
Number of actual 911 calls received by fiscal year:
2020: 370,686
2021: 384,150
2022: target: 390,000
2022: midyear [actual]: 240,203
2023: target: 400,00
Number of actual 242-COPS calls received
2020: 600, 236
2021: 554,992
2022 target: 580,00
2022 mid-year [actual]: 279,447
2023 target: 575,000
Number of calls for service
2020: 543,574
2021: 524,286
2022 target: 550,000
2022 mid-year [actual]: 253,386
2023 target: 550,000
Number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents:
2020: 6,685
2021: 7,073
2022 target: 8,000
2022 mid-year [actual]: 7,579
Number of property crimes per 100,000 residents:
2020: 32,135
2021: 8,972
2022 target: 33,000
2022 mid year [actual]: 24,600
APD RESPONSE TIME PERFORMANCE MESURES
Following are the response times listed for APD priority 1, 2,3,4 and 5 calls under the performance measure “Officers arrive quickly”:
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Percentage (%) of Priority 1 calls responded to within 10 seconds” refers to the call actually being answered by the 911 operator, the time the operator takes to assign a priority ranking of 1 through 5 and the time it takes to dispatch a police unit to a call. It does not reflect the time it actually takes for a dispatched officers to arrive at a scene after the call is made to 911.
Average response time to Priority 1 calls (minutes)
Percentage of Priority 1 calls responded to within 10 minutes:
Fiscal year 2020 Actual: 90.80%
Fiscal year 2021 Actual: 89.48%
Fiscal year 2022 Approved: 90%
Fiscal year 2022 Mid Year: 70.07%
RESPONSE TIMES
The actual time in minutes and seconds are as follows:
Fiscal year 2020 actual: 7 minutes, 10 seconds
Fiscal year 2021 actual: 6 minutes, 8 seconds
Approved fiscal year 2022: 6 minutes, 10 seconds
Midyear fiscal year 2022: 7 minutes, 19 seconds
Proposed Fiscal year 2023: 7 minutes, 30 seconds
Average response time to Priority 2 calls (minutes)
Fiscal year 2020 actual: 10 minutes, 43 seconds
Fiscal year 2021 actual: 3 minutes, 45 seconds
Approved fiscal year 2022: 4 minutes, 9 seconds
Midyear fiscal year 2022: 6 minutes, 18 seconds
Proposed Fiscal year 2023: 6 minutes, 20 seconds
Average response time to Priority 3 calls (minutes)
Fiscal year 2020 actual: 14 minutes, 49 seconds
Fiscal year 2021 actual: 13 minutes, 43 seconds
Approved fiscal year 2022: 14 minutes, 55 seconds
Midyear fiscal year 2022: 16 minutes, 28 seconds
Proposed Fiscal year 2023: 16 minutes, 30 seconds
Average response time to Priority 4 calls (minutes)
Fiscal year 2020 actual: 15 minutes, 12 seconds
Fiscal year 2021 actual: 15 minutes, 16 seconds
Approved fiscal year 2022: 16 minutes, 13 seconds
Midyear fiscal year 2022: 18 minutes, 39 seconds
Proposed Fiscal year 2023: 19 minutes, 0 seconds
Average response time to Priority 5 calls (minutes)
Fiscal year 2020 actual: 11 minutes, 45 seconds
Fiscal year 2021 actual: 9 minutes, 34 seconds
Approved fiscal year 2022: 7 minutes, 28 seconds
Midyear fiscal year 2022: 7 minutes, 43 seconds
Proposed Fiscal year 2023: 7 minutes, 45 seconds
APD PERFORMANCE MEASURES ON SOLVING CRIMES
APD’s 2022-2023 proposed budget contains specific performance measures on APD “solving crimes” when it comes to felony arrests, misdemeanor arrests and DWI arrests. Following are those statistics
ACTUAL NUMBER OF FELONY ARRESTS
Fiscal year 2020: 10,945
Fiscal year 2021: 6,621
ACTUAL NUMBER OF MISDEAMEANOR ARRESTS
Fiscal year 2020: 19,440
Fiscal year 2021: 16,520
ACTUAL NUMBER OF DWI ARRESTS
Fiscal year 2020: 1,788
Fiscal year 2021: 1,230
APD CLEARANCE RATES
APD’s 2022-2023 proposed budget contains specific performance measures on APD “
Clearance rates on crimes investigated, including homicides separately, as follows:
Actual clearance rates of “crimes against persons” (e.g. murder, rape, assault)
Fiscal year 2020: 56%
Fiscal year 2021: 56%
Actual clearance rates of “crimes against property” (e.g. robbery, bribery, burglary)
Fiscal year 2020: 11%
Fiscal year 2021: 12%
Actual clearance rates of “crime against society” (gambling, prostitution, drug violations)
Fiscal year 2020: 79%
Fiscal year 2021: 77%
HOMICIDE CLEARANCE RATE:
Fiscal year 2020: 57%
Fiscal year 2021: 53%
Approved for 2022: 60%
Mid-Year [Actual] 2022: 47.5 %
APD NOT PROACTIVE AS TO ARRESTS
APD performance measure statistics for the budget years of 2019 and 2020 reflect that APD is not “pro-active” and not doing its job of investigating and arresting people. APD felony arrests went down from 2019 to 2020 by 39.51%, going down from 10,945 to 6,621. Misdemeanor arrests went down by 15% going down from 19,440 to 16,520. DWI arrests went down from 1,788 in 2019 to 1,230 in 2020, down 26%. The total number of all arrests went down from 32,173 in 2019 to 24,371 in 2020 or by 25%. Bookings at the jail have plummeted from 38,349 in 2010 to 17,734 in 2020. To have booking, there must be arrests. Thus far as of mid April 2022, APD’s homicide unit has an anemic clearance rate of 36%.
2018 to 2021 CRIME STATISTICS COMPARED
APD Response times are only the very first step with APD dealing with a crime. The extent of the city’s crime problem is reflected by the city’s final crime statistics. Following is a nutshell breakdown of Albuquerque’s 2018 to 2021 crime statistics as reported by the FBI national crime statistics reports:
TOTAL CRIMES
In 2021, according to data released on March 30 by APD, total crimes in Albuquerque increased by 0.85%. The less than 1% increase was the first time since 2018 that crime was reported to have increased overall. Since 2018, APD has said that there was a 19% drop in property crime, which drove a decrease in overall crime, even as violent crime spiked across Albuquerque. The 0.85% increase in overall crime came after the city recorded decreases of 7% and 6% in 2019 and 2020 in overall crime. Those decreases were attributed to back-to-back drops of 10% in property crimes.
Following are the past 4 years of total crime statistics:
2018: 75,538
2019: 70,223
2020: 65,503
2021: 66,066
CRIMES AGAINST PERSONS
Crimes Against Persons include murder, rape, and assault, and are those in which the victims are always individuals. Following are the reported totals in Crimes Against Persons for the last 4 years:
2018: 14,845
2019: 14,971
2020: 15,262
2021: 15,765
Violent crime increased or has stayed relatively constant for the last 4 years. In 2021, Violent Crime, known as crimes against persons, saw increases in all but four categories. Violent crime continued to rise and went up 3% which is largest annual increase since 2018. APD’s data shows the steepest increase were in homicide with an increase of 53%, intimidation with an increase of 20% and aggravated assault with an increase of 5%.
In 2021, gun violations along with homicide and fraud, saw the largest increases. APD’s data shows the steepest increase were in homicide with a 53% increase, intimidation with a 20% increase and aggravated assault with a 5% increase, all of which reached their highest levels since 2018.
Sex offenses increased by 15% as simple assault decreased by 11% and kidnapping decreased by 5%.
CRIMES AGAINST PROPERTY
Crimes Against Property include robbery, bribery, and burglary, or to obtain money, property, or some other benefit. Following are the Crimes Against Property for the last 4 years:
2018: 57,328
2019: 51,541
2020: 46,373
2021: 46,291
In 2018, property crime began to fall and for the past several years, has decreased. In 2021, property crime had its first increase of under 1%. Property crime saw its biggest jumps in reports of fraud and robbery. Notwithstanding the increase, property crime did see a large drop with a 15% drop in stolen property, a 10% drop in the category of “destruction, damage, vandalism” and a 7% drop in “larceny and theft offenses”. All three categories reached their lowest levels since 2018.
Fraud skyrocketed 61%, from 3,900 to 6,300 cases. According to APD, Fraud rose as APD cracked down on shoplifting, larceny and burglaries. APD said those with drug abuse issues moved away from those crimes and began to steal identities, checks and credit cards to fuel their drug addiction behavior. According to APD, auto theft rose by 6% and the rise was the first time in years.
Auto theft rose for the first time in years and went up by 6%. According to APD Chief Medina, the increase was attributed to an Internal Affairs investigation into the Auto Theft unit that opened in June 2021. The investigation caused the unit to “take a step back” and become “skittish” in enforcement.
CRIMES AGAINST SOCIETY
Crimes Against Society include gambling, prostitution, and drug violations, and represent society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity and are typically victimless crimes. Crimes Against Property for the last 4 years is reported as follows:
2018:3,365
2019: 3,711
2020: 3,868
2021: 3,910
According to the data released, crimes against society saw a large spike of 66% in gun violations which has gone up 218% since 2018 and drops of 26% and 63%, respectively, in drug offenses and prostitution. In 2021, prostitution, drug and stolen property offenses had the biggest decreases. Chief Medina attributed the slight increase in Crimes Against Society locally to internal investigation and technology lapses hindering auto theft enforcement, people with drug use issues committing more fraud and an increase in guns being taken off the streets.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
Newly elected City Councilor Louie Sanchez’ demand for an audit of APD is questionable on a number of levels. It reflects a degree of vindictiveness’ and pettiness on his part as he seeks to show dominance and control over a department he once worked for 26 years.
First, Louie Sanchez has made it very personal in his attempt to exert his authority as an elected official over APD. He engages in a pattern of conduct of calling APD 911, not being satisfied with how APD handles his calls, and then turns around to discuss it at city council meetings. Instead of first attempting to handle the problem privately like citizens are required to do, he uses his city council position to get media coverage to force APD into submission.
Second, when Sanchez yells at low ranking city 911 operators, as APD Spokesman Gilbert Gallegos has said, he is creating an atmosphere of resentment and mistrust of an elected official by city hall employees.
Third, Sanchez used a “secured line” that is supposed to only be used by the Chief saying “I’ve called that line for 26 years as a police officer and I still have that in my phone.” It’ s more likely than not that Sanchez did not have the number his entire 26 years as a police officer and was given the number when he was in charge of the Mayor’s personal security detail. When Sanchez terminated his employment with APD, he was required to return all of his city issued equipment and should have deleted the secured line and not retain it for his personal use.
Fourth, Sanchez is asking for an audit that is so “in the weeds” as to be impossible to determine anything of real value let alone accuracy. In order to perform the audit Sanchez wants and get accurate results, auditors will have to find a way to review upwards of 400,000 Priority 1 calls, which would require also listening to dispatch recordings and then and only then be able to determine if a 911 call was accurately classified as priority 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Such review will only result in second guessing the classification of calls.
Five, Sanchez is attempting to micromanage APD when that is not the function or authority of a City Councilor. If managing APD is what Sanchez wants to do, he should resign his council seat and ask Mayor Keller to appoint him APD Chief or Chief Administrative Officer of the City, which may be a good idea given Medina’s poor performance and now that CAO Sarita Nair is leaving. Then again, its highly doubtful the City Council, other than Dan Lewis, would vote to confirm him.
FINAL COMMENT
City Councilor Louie Sanchez has no business trying to manage APD as a City Councilor by calling APD 911 and telling APD how to handle 911 calls which is exactly what he has done. Sanchez is looking increasingly like a fool and losing credibility at City Hall as he uses the press to ask questions of APD and calling for audits. Louie Sanchez needs to start acting like a City Councilor and needs to start introducing City Council Resolutions that will affect APD on policy to solve APD problems and get the backing of more than Republican City Councilors with his efforts.
On April 1, Mayor Tim Keller forwarded to the City Council the 2022-2023 proposed budget that the City Council must review, amend and enact before July 1. The most crucial responsibility of the City Council is to review the budget. City Councilor Louie Sanchez has the best opportunity to find out what is going on with APD during the budget process when APD’s budget is presented by APD Chief Medina. The budget process is the time and place to hold APD accountable.