Episode 41 Shaun Willoughby With A Cops View On Exploding Crime & Why You Should Consider Getting A Gun!

That's what we do and we're proud of it .

Do you feel like , do you feel appreciated ? Because for us , we see what you guys do and we're like my goodness , we are so thankful , but as a group , do you feel appreciated in this state where we are right now ?

For you know the legislature and the governor and the mayor of this community . I can say that your officers don't feel as supported as they should in this community but from the public . That's why we get up every morning and we do what we do Okay .

It's frustrated on both sides of the spectrum , because if I tackle somebody on a field filled with pillows and it is the most I mean you could play soft music to that Nobody gets injured . This is a bad guy that committed a felony . That tackle is going to take me out of service for the remainder of the day .

That is going to cause a six to seven hour investigation . Detectives have to come . We have to separate officers like criminals .

They're out of service and in an area command where you maybe have , if you're lucky , six officers working today in this particular area , to have four of them completely closed off in their cars pending an investigation for a whole lot of nothing , it really wears an officer down .

But we're nine years later and if you look at the numbers in everywhere where the DOJ comes in and oversees a police department , one thing , there's one trend line that's clear Crime goes up . Oh yeah , it's just . It just goes up for some of the reasons you're talking about . Officers are pulled out of the mix . Why is the DOJ still here and who ?

Where does that button need to be pushed to get them out of here , to allow APD to do their job ?

I doubt they've ever been in a physical altercation in their life coming into a profession they know absolutely nothing about , with an agenda and ideologies that may or may not work , and they're just throwing stuff at the wall until the poor agency can kind of figure it out .

And then they have this cottage industry monitor who was a police officer like in 75 , coming in with his doctorate degree to hold them accountable and he still gets paid as long as they're not performing , and paid very well , like millions of dollars , like millions of dollars a year . What a scam . I'm in the wrong profession .

I think the trigger pool is just having a real conversation with the judge and the city of Albuquerque standing up for themselves and saying we physically don't have the resources to comply . We have to change everything . But they don't want to do that because they're close to compliance .

So you have to be in compliance which is 98% compliant with a particular paragraph of the consent decree , which is 244 paragraphs . You have to be 98% compliant for two years to graduate to self-monitoring , which means that now we monitor that paragraph ourselves , the monitor doesn't monitor that paragraph .

So for the city of Albuquerque to stand up and say the truth , which is we don't have the staff , we don't have the resources , we cannot perform to this level . They're going to continue down this destructive path that hurts our community , hurts our police department , because if they restart everything , they have to start their compliance track for another two years .

So they will have to be 98% compliant in their new policy and in the meantime go to war with DOJ and the monitoring team and just this whole process will last another 10 years .

So strategically , politically , I think on that side of the table they're like we're not going to touch it , we've made good progress , we're just going to keep going and we're going to make the progress and hopefully one day a butterfly will come down and the DOJ will go away . That's , I think , the plan that they're on .

But if you think about it , the year before DOJ came here , they were here because the Albu Kerke Police Department was involved in I think it was 14 officer involved shootings over the course of , I think , two to three years . Last year , in 2022 , we had 19 officer involved shootings .

We were polite and professional with everybody we came in contact with , but I was going to ask you to get out of the car , I was going to tell you to get out of the car and then I was going to make you get out of the car , and that's just the way that we worked . Well , we have .

I can show you a video where these guys are asking people to do something armed with a gun , in the middle of the street for over an hour . They're trying to CIT , they're trying to de-escalate , they're 100% focused on de-escalation .

They're trying to talk people into handcuffs and when you take away their ability to use less lethal force options , then you escalate situations into a lethal force encounter because the options have been minimized . That has changed in the policy After last year's atrosis 22, . You know we had 19 police officer involved shootings in 22 .

It was directly tied to the to the lack of utilization of less lethal options , like I can talk about . I mean , we all saw the video of the individual that was walking down Samiteo broad daylight . He had a knife in his hand . He was obviously having a bad day . Maybe he was mentally ill , who knows , who cares .

It's not our job to to psychoanalyze this man when we get to the call , but you're not allowed to walk against traffic in broad daylight with a knife in your hand , threatening to kill everybody . When I was younger , we would have shot him with a beanbag as many times as it took . We would have tased him and we got him .

We would have got him into custody and we would have taken him either either to 2600 marble for a mental health evaluation or we would have taken him to jail , depending on what warrants he had . But not not today . They have to follow him down the street . They have to talk to him . We're not here to hurt you , we want to help you and it what ?

What happens is that he turned around and he he approached the officers aggressively , he threw the knife at him and they were they . They fired a weapon and they killed him . That didn't need to happen .

Like if the officers were allowed to use the weapons that they have and that they've been trained to use , a lot of these situations wouldn't escalate to that situation and that's what's really frustrating . So that is a small change that has happened over the last 12 months .

I don't think the change goes deep enough , but the use of force policy change that in certain circumstances the officers are allowed to use their tools without the fear of getting fired or having an unauthorized use of force , because I mean , at the end of the day , if you have an unauthorized use of force in the city of Albuquerque Police Department , you're most

likely going to get fired Right .

So obviously we've seen crime go up in Albuquerque , okay , and and I talk about crime a lot , I talk about it on the podcast a lot , I talk about it on Twitter a lot I'm I have two , you know , we have two young daughters that are now we're governing every little thing they do because of how much the crime has even increased in our , even in our areas ,

right , oh yeah , so no gas station run . There's no going to the grocery store once it gets dark . I mean , we have all these rules as a family , right , because we've seen the spike . So talk to us about the reality here of are we just letting shoplifters run out and do their thing ? Are we allowing just criminal like behavior ? Are the cops just backing off ?

Or is that a misconception of what's actually happening ? Are we just low on officers , like what's the deal ? You're , it's a compounding problem right .

So individuals that that want to speak on behalf of you , right , the community , people that live here that actually work in this community , the ACLU , albuquerque forward and the McLendon subclass , those are parties to the consent decree .

So the McLendon subclass , their mission was to prevent officers to do broken windows theory , so low level misdemeanor crimes that were not arrestable . You could cite them but you couldn't arrest them . So officers would carry around a card all over the place that a knowing that they were not allowed to arrest on these 27 misdemeanors .

If they did , then they were in trouble for violating McLendon . There's a McLendon policy in our , in our police department that requires you to treat low level crimes a certain way . We have jail diversion . I mean this whole entire police department is is .

I mean they're not really focused on what we need to get the streets back , which is broken windows theory , policing Um , broken windows theory , policing started in New York . It's the only police concept that's ever been proven to work . We don't do that in Albuquerque , so your police officer has to deal with . Well , is it worth it , right , did he ?

I mean , he stole . He stole $80 worth of stakes and he's running . Am I going to go chase him and now get into a use of force ? Is it the threshold of misdemeanor ? Because these officers are getting pulled into internal affairs and held like financially responsible for violating these policies on a regular basis ? Um , it's just . It's just .

That's a tough way to do your job .

And if you give me a crib sheet of just like , okay , here's what I would do If I could wave a magic wand and and you've been a cop for a long time you know what the system is like , you know what the prosecutors are like , you know what the judges are like , you know what the legislators are like . Where does the ?

Where can we direct our frustration with crime ? I believe .

They're the , the , the number one person in their life . Their loved one is no longer with them . And I saw the dedication in those 12 people to show up at every city council meeting . They were at every single press conference . They were . I don't know how they did it , but they did it and they changed the course of Albuquerque forever .

And what the city needs to do is they need to get motivated and they need to start paying attention and they need to engage . They need to go to city council , they need to like I'm .

I'm dumbfounded that we have this nine year long consent decree that has cost us million . I mean $100 million , if you were to total it all out . It's destroyed crime in Albuquerque , it's destroyed our police department , it's destroyed the morale of police officers , but yet there's not one group at the table that represents this community not one .

So there wasn't even a group of community personnel that were able to get an attorney to go and represent what they're going through as community members . Everybody at that table has an agenda . The ACLU has an agenda . Albuquerque forward is the ACLU on steroids , and you have them .

You have the amici subclass , which are just worried about mental health and homeless people being left alone and being able to pitch a tent on your sidewalk .

I mean , at the end of the day , there's nobody at the table that represents this community in an aggressive way and I don't see you would hope our elected leaders would be those people and they're not oh yeah , they're not because they're .

They're politicians Like the elected leaders have bases and people that that get them elected and and it's not going to be they're not going to go against the grain , right Like they're not going to do it .

So I mean , at the end of the day , the only way to get your elected leader to go against the grain of his base is to put so much damn pressure on him . He has no other choice .

And then Torrez comes in from the top rope and they're like by the way , you didn't prosecute anybody , so why don't you sit down ? Yeah , like when you saw that where you're like what's ?

But like every time I go to the legislature and I lobby for common sense stuff like presumptive health care for police officers that get heart attacks on duty , like I am I walk out of that building thinking this is why we're number one at every bad list on the planet , because there's nothing that gets that really gets done .

Like any real crime , legislation gets killed in its first committee or it doesn't get introduced , and the shenanigans that go on just to get something passed are absolutely ridiculous . Like it's a joke and it's great to have this joke displayed on national television because it is a joke .

far . We're going after these people . My question is is okay , so great , we put all our officers out there , we pull these people in ? How long do they actually stay behind bars ?

It's absolutely egregious and it used to be disheartening . You know , we would say , before the paperwork's dry on your report , this guy's going to be out of jail . But we didn't care because he needed to go to jail , right ? We would go and we would arrest him again as a detective . I would hold warrants right .

I would arrest an individual on a residential or commercial burglary and I would send him to jail and then I would do cases other cases on them and I would hold different warrants so that when they were , I'd get a phone call that he's getting released . I'd pick him up at the door and rebook him with a new warrant .

First of all , I'd love your take on that because , you know , do you have an opinion on that ?

You know and started recording is that if everybody knew the kind of good bills that get a bullet put in them , they'd be shocked . Yeah , yeah , like we were talking about it earlier .

other thing , and the bill died in its first committee . But it was so common sense I was like , yeah , like this is probably going to be good for law enforcement , like this was pretty common sense to me .

And then the the advocate against the bill I think they were the ACLU actually got up and testimony and said , well , drug dealing is a really dangerous job .

what . What's going on right now in Albuquerque . For numbers , there's always been a lot of kind of dispute on how many police officers do we have on the street versus what the city claims . How many more do we need ? And no matter what that number is , could you even recruit them right now ?

So the Albuquerque police department they make significant pay raises underneath Keller . So you know we still have work to do to be competitive within this region , but today we're the top paid law enforcement agency in the state of New Mexico . Our pay incentives have gotten state police incentive incentivize the legislature to give them more money .

Our pay package has incentivized Bernalillo County to make more money . So at the end of the day excuse me , at the end of the day , it's not the money and we can always have more money and we still need to make steps into .

I mean , we need to be compared with Colorado Springs , we need to be compared with Phoenix , we need to be compared with the Southwest region of the United States , because the profession of policing is going that route and they're pulling from outside of the state . Everybody knows these kids aren't stupid . You know what I mean . They have Google .

They know what's going on in Albuquerque . Like , even if you wanted to be a cop out of all these agencies that are looking to get police officers , like what makes you come to Albuquerque ? The one with a consent decree for the last decade ? No , thank you , I'll go somewhere else so that the recruiting is an absolute challenge . What do we need , depending on ?

I mean , if we're taking the same administrative burden that we have right now regarding our policy and investigative capacity and everything that we're doing , all the dumb stuff we have to do right now because of the consent decree , you need 14 to 1500 cops to be effective .

It was the southwest , the west side and they covered north and south and then they created the northwest substation and in order to create it , you can't just grow these police officers , you have to take your resources and man that substation , which that was really the beginning , the beginning of feeling , as an officer , that our staffing was not adequate .

And ever since then it's just gotten progressively worse . I mean it's bad . We I believe we have less officers today than we had in 1989 . I have lineups from 1988 that we have either the very similar number or a little bit less . Today We've grown by I don't know 150 , 200,000 residents since the 80s . So there is definitely challenges that face Albuquerque .

Recruiting in law enforcement is one of them . But it's not like our profession does a really good job , like you know . I mean , you've got young kids . They have no idea if you go to a high school , if you go to El Dorado High School or Sandia .

I guarantee you nobody's ever had a real conversation with these kids to try to change the narrative and they have no idea that a rookie police officer makes almost 80 , 85 to 90 grand a year and if you add overtime on that he's breaking 100,000 . So I mean it is a viable career but nobody's communicating that story .

We've done a really horrible job at at counter countering the narrative .

That's not what motivates . That wouldn't motivate me to be a cop . I wanted to jump out of a helicopter with a gun and go after bad guys . I looked at the video and I was like I want to do that and that's why I was . That's why I became a police officer . So their advertising is incorrect . I don't believe they're bridging the gap .

There's a million ways to do it . We could create a mobile fats like the fats system is that shoot , don't shoot video , where you have all the top technology and they . They put you through a scenario and you got to make a real decision .

Let's talk about it , right ? Why did you make ? Why did you make that decision ?

mind . So you know , I just don't think that our profession in general is really bridging that gap . We're so worried about the now you know how many , how many do we have in the academy right now ? But we're not worried about the future . And if things keep going the way that they're going , we're not going to have a future Like they're .

You're going to be so understaffed You're going to be policed by civilians or robots .

Yes , we want tough people that are going to go out there and force the law and do what has to be done , right ?

of things good and you did a few things that were really dangerous and I would not recommend those things again . And I learned a lot in that moment from that off . From the two officers that were in my , in my living room that day and thank goodness we got , we were okay . The guy was trying to get quick cash or something you know . I don't know .

They thought they figured he was into maybe buying drugs or something to that degree , and so we were not harmed . But I was scared to death waiting those 11 minutes for an officer to show up . And so what are , what are your recommendations for us now as citizens of Albuquerque ? How , what do we do , like ? How , how do we stay safer ?

I mean , I'm , I'm locking my doors . We got , you know , private security . We don't go to certain places at night . I mean , are there any other recommendations You're ?

You're making good , cognizant decisions for you and your family , but my only recommendation is that you know I'm I'm very realistic when it comes to this particular question I've been asked this question before and you have to train and you need to get a gun and you need to learn how to fight and you need to have a mindset of survival , because 11 minutes is

too long . You are going to be in a situation where you have to defend yourself and your family and you need to be able to do it and you need to be able to be competent doing it .

So anybody as messed up as Albuquerque is , even when we were fully staffed and crime wasn't so bad , you cannot have a mindset of the government is here , they're here to help . Like you have to be independent , you have to take care of yourself , and part of that educational process is knowing the right way to do it right .

Like I mean , if somebody kicks in your front door and you shoot them as they stand , you're fine , but if you run outside into the neighborhood , and you start blowing rounds down the street . you're gonna go to jail Right right .

Like you have the right in this country and in this state to defend yourself , your life , your property and your livestock , because New Mexico's cool like that . I mean , at the end of the day , you just have to have you have to have a fight mindset and you need to take care of you and yours .

I think I did like four surveillance camera installs for little old people in that neighborhood that were just terrified and I told them just continue to call the cops . Continue to call the cops . I mean I'm the president of the union , I have tons of friends on this department and I couldn't get them out there . I couldn't get any bait stuff out there .

I couldn't get any knock and talks , I couldn't get any field briefings out there . And it wasn't until a massive party and cops got called that she took , I think , 10 rounds through her house that anything was really done . Now they were Lickety , split the next day with closing the doors and getting these guys evicted . But how dangerous is that ?

My mom moved away . She'll never live in New Mexico again . Like it was absolutely so disappointed .

It looks like now more and more , unless your life is in danger , you don't even bother calling APD , and not because they don't wanna solve the problem , but because they just can't .

Well , what happens in that essence , when it's so cumbersome to call and report crime and report for your insurance company , that you stop doing it . Your crime rate goes down . That's exactly what's happened here .

So a lot of people are cognizantly deciding whether or not it's imperative or important to report the crime , and we see this , we've seen it for years . But it's a really hard aggregate to get your hands on real data , right Like it's really hard to get that information to prove it and be like no , your crime's not down . You idiot , this is what's going on .

We know it's going on , but it's hard to prove .

And I was like that's the frustrating part , right , I'm like I didn't go after a cop and you know you've been a reporter for a long time you know what they're doing .

Like we all know that it's a disaster . So the back and forth is just ridiculous . I wish that they would be . I just wish they would be really bluntly honest , which is really hard for a politician , because the boss is the boss is the boss and the mayor's the boss , right .

So , I've never seen I've been in a cop for 20 years I've never seen some epitome of leadership in charge of the police department . Right , I think Mike Geyer was the worst police chief I ever worked under . I think that Gordon Eden was probably one of the most decent humans I had the pleasure of working for and working with . Harold is .

You know , we fight and we argue , but Harold never doesn't give me a seat at the table , and for that I'm appreciative .

He'll always listen , He'll try to work on the . It's really easy . Like I'm not going to , I'm not going to help you , Go ahead and sue me or let's work on this one . I mean , at least we know we don't waste our time .

He'll be there for two weeks and see you later . It turns out you got to just want to spend more time with your family , you know like , but so what is the right balance there between look , I'm going to stand up , tell the truth , look out for my people , and then , at the same time , I serve at the pleasure of the mayor ?

Most people don't really understand that the . They don't have any authority . The chief doesn't have any authority to change policy . Right , he doesn't have the authority to say you know , Mark , I really understand , that situation was ridiculous . We're going to give you another shot .

If the IA paperwork says termination , you're going to get terminated and it will be an undertaking , like a nobody's comprehension , to change that , even if it's the right thing to do . So . The , the , the . The machine that they've created as a part of this process and the system of the DOJ has taken leaders completely out of the mix . Like they .

They don't have . They have the ability to , to maybe delineate between a range of discipline , but they don't argue with IA , because any time they have a disagreement with IA , they have to write a seven page dissertation as to why , and then they have to deliver it directly to the monitor .

Where are you on what you think maybe our community , especially here in Albuquerque , but even across the state , what our communities are going to look like within the next couple of years ?

I don't think Albuquerque is repairable . I don't think they have the heart and the truth is the training scar that has been implemented on these officers is so deep there's not anybody left . There's nobody left from the old time . They don't . Even most of the young guys have no idea what it used to be . It's a culture change .

That's part of the whole process . But the training scar we talk about it in policing all day long . You fight how you train , you train how you're going to fight right and you don't want to have training scars . You don't want to have scars in your muscle memory and your training that are going to get you killed .

And what I see in the Albuquerque Police Department is a giant training scar and we've gone through almost a decade of this training scar and your police officers don't know any better and I think in the future this is just going to become the way it is for this department and it's not going .

It's going to be out of control inevitably , and I think that recruiting is going to be a major thing , right , I mean , we make okay money right now , but I think that police officers in this country are going to make a whole lot more money because the narrative is so negative , like if you have talk to your kids , I guarantee you like everybody talks trash

about policing .

If you got one story to tell somebody , I don't care whether it has to do with police , it can have to do with policing , can have to do with the crazy thing that's happened policing-wise , but I want you to give me , if you had to sit down with someone and entertain them for a minute or two with your best story , can you give me and give us your best

story ?

I work every day hard . I'm building a food truck . I'm a real estate agent . I'm a proud police officer . My best story is my life and the things that I've overcome and the kind of father that I am , and really putting God first and making good decisions on behalf of the people that depend on me . Amen , brother .