The year ended with both local law enforcement agencies — the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and Albuquerque Police Department — tallying their highest homicide totals in decades.
In 2022, APD investigated 120 deaths and BCSO investigated 21 while New Mexico State Police is handling a single case, the high-profile shootout on University of New Mexico campus that left a student dead.
For those 120 deaths, the result was a homicide rate of 21 per 100,000 people in 2022 — up from a rate of 20 in 2021 when 114 slayings were investigated across the city.
In 2019, Albuquerque had seen its highest total and per capita rate to date with 81 homicides and a rate of 14 per 100,000 people.
Since then, gun violence has spiked considerably and even hit BCSO’s turf, the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County that previously often were untouched by the city’s homicide woes.
In a recent briefing, APD Chief Harold Medina said more guns on the streets, whether stolen or bought during the pandemic, has led to more violence.
The issue is exacerbated, he said, particularly when accompanied by inebriation, minor squabbles or mental health issues.
“The more individuals we have armed with a firearm that aren’t making responsible decisions with their state of mind … We’re going to continue to see homicides,” Medina said.
At least 86% of the homicides in 2022 were committed with a gun, up from 66% in 2019.
However, detectives solved more homicides than ever in a single year, closing 69 cases from 2022 and 22 cases from previous years. Some cases involved multiple victims and suspects, and 14 of the offenders were charged in three cases.
The case clearance rate ended up at 75% on the year, without including the 15 cases that were closed as justifiable homicide cases. Including those cases, the rate is 94%.
The clearance rate had hovered between 51% and 62% since 2015.
Medina attributed the success in clearing cases to leadership changes, bolstering the Homicide Unit to 16 homicide detectives, increased oversight and the implementation of the detective academy.
“This in the end has helped us really bring a sense of justice to a lot of the families, a sense of closure,” he said. “It will never bring their loved ones back.”
But there have also been criticisms from victims’ families in several cases, often citing a lack of communication from detectives or their cases becoming dormant.
Medina said APD leadership has initiated a review process for old homicides with new detectives — or even bringing retired detectives back to finish a case they left unsolved.
“Something that may have been overlooked in the past, somebody else is looking at it with a fresh set of eyes and they’re able to bring value to something that may have been missed,” he said.
The initiative is clear in multiple charging documents, which detail investigative lapses of months or longer before the case is assigned — and summarily closed — by a separate detective.
Most of the 118 suspects identified in 2022 have been arrested, but 10 are dead and 10 are charged but on the loose.
Fourteen of those suspects, or 12%, were on pretrial release conditions or pending trial in another case at the time of the homicide, according to court records, and at least 13 were on probation. Three of the suspects were on both probation and pretrial release at the time of the crime.
But none of the 118 suspects were on release after a judge denied a pretrial detention motion against them — in what has become a hot-button issue as bail reform remains a political flashpoint.
Gilbert Gallegos, an Albuquerque police spokesman, said 75 suspects had a prior criminal history and 31 had no criminal record. Of those with a record, 50% had a previous violent crime arrest, 28% had a previous property crime arrest and 11% had prior drug-related charges.
Similar to previous years, the majority of suspects were between the ages of 18 and 35 years old and most were Hispanic, according to data provided by APD. But, Gallegos said, 20% of 2022’s identified suspects were Black compared with only 11% in previous cases dating back to 2018.
The department said it hopes to use data to inform crime-fighting efforts while also providing resources, like drug courts and interventions, to stop the violence in the first place.
“We have to have the support networks to get individuals out of those lifestyles at earlier ages,” Medina said. “We have to have that balance; violent people stay in jail, drug addicts get drug treatment, individuals with mental illness get some kind of support.”
Gallegos said the department is concerned with how these 118 new murder cases will impact the criminal justice system and the caseloads of prosecutors and defense attorneys.
“We don’t want to see these cases pled out or fall through the cracks because there’s not sufficient resources to try them,” he said. “They deserve their day in court.”
Medina pointed out that APD has reaped the benefits of millions of dollars in technology investments and said the entire criminal justice system is going to need help this legislative session “if we’re ever going to see a true huge reduction in violent crime.”
“Our goal is to advocate for everybody to get the funding that they need so they can be as fortunate as we are,” he said. “The Albuquerque Police Department alone cannot solve crime. We need a fully functional, well-supported criminal justice system.”
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