Police Chief Who Fled A Shooting And Crashed Into Another Car Deliberately Didn’t Activate His Body Camera

Legal Issues

from the an-hero dept

Well, here’s some more flavor to add to this horrendous mix of irresponsibility and privilege put in motion by Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina’s multiple moving violations earlier this year.

Here’s a pretty solid recap of the incident, composed by a pretty solid writer, if I may be so bold and self-serving:

Let’s run this all down: Chief Medina was driving a police vehicle, albeit one that was unmarked. He had his wife in his work vehicle. Despite being off-duty, he decided to take his wife on a brief tour of an area he felt needed more law enforcement: a “homeless encampment.” His wife was (apparently) the first to notice a gun. Rather than act like a cop in a cop vehicle (off-duty or not), Chief Medina chose to compound the danger of the situation by driving through a red light… because it was far more important he (and maybe his wife) escape injury than anyone else residing in the city.

Whether or not Chief Medina was technically “on the clock” isn’t open for discussion. He was headed to a press conference, which strongly suggests he was engaging in police business, even if he wasn’t actually engaged in actual law enforcement.

Medina blew through a red light, cutting off oncoming traffic and t-boning the car driven by Todd Perchert, who was doing nothing more than following traffic laws by proceeding through a green light. Chief Medina managed to escape injury, but the innocent victim of his bold cowardice in the face of danger didn’t fare nearly as well. Not only was his classic 1966 Ford Mustang totaled, but Perchert was hospitalized for [deep breath] a broken collarbone, broken shoulder blade, eight broken ribs, and a collapsed lung.

Despite the chief running from the sound of gunfire, he was hailed as a hero by the city’s mayor, Tim Keller:

The chief of police is arguably the most important person right now in these times, in our city, in our state. And so, what he did today, I think, also was something he does every day and our officers do every day, which is he is out on the front line. He is doing what he can to make our city safe. And this is actually him on a Saturday morning—disrupting an altercation, a shooting. Trying to do what’s right. Trying to make sure that folks are OK after on scene. This is above and beyond what you expect from a chief. And I’m grateful for Harold Medina.

Well, we all vomited a little that day. It’s impossible to “disrupt” a shooting by speeding away from it with reckless disregard for the safety of other drivers, much less anyone else who might have been in the vicinity of the shooter. And it doesn’t actually appear the chief did much to make sure “folks are OK” after he totaled Perchert’s vehicle and severely fucked up Perchert’s body.

Maybe there’s evidence of this so-called heroism somewhere, but you’re not going to find it at the Albuquerque Police Department. Chief Medina had the opportunity to provide a narrative that might have contradicted the recordings captured by nearby CCTV cameras. But he didn’t. Instead, he took the opportunity to ensure no narrative from his perspective survived his fleeing of one crime scene only to create another.

A new report from Internal Affairs says Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina intentionally did not have his body camera recording after a February car crash he was involved in.

“It blew my mind because it’s so preposterous,” former APD Officer Tom Grover said.

He’s also an attorney who says this report caught his attention immediately.

“The thing that jumped out at me like frankly a nuclear bomb was the fact that Medina admitted that he purposefully did not activate his lapel camera video,” Grover said.

Somehow I think the police chief will survive this nuclear bomb of his own making, despite having blatantly violated state body cam laws. That law requires activation of body cameras during the “initiation of any law enforcement or investigative encounter” between a police officer and the public. It also forbids deactivation until the conclusion of the encounter.

The chief may try to claim he was off-duty and not required to activate his body cam, but it’s highly unlikely that argument will be given credence since he was literally on his way to an APD press conference.

But it’s far more likely he’ll simply choose to avoid claiming anything at all. For some strange reason, despite not actually facing criminal charges at this moment, the chief has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. And he’s invoked these from an equally strange place: behind his police chief desk, since he’s still the department’s chief.

In any event, it appears the end result of this will be a wrist slap light enough the chief will accept it voluntarily.

A spokesperson for the department said Chief Medina did agree to disciplinary actions but disagrees with some of the conclusions made in this investigation by Internal Affairs.

Of course he disagrees. It probably just states the facts, none of which make the chief look like someone who should be in the position he’s in. He fled an alleged shooting to save his own life, purposefully endangered other drivers, and severely injured Todd Perchert. Then he made sure the only footage of the incident was provided by privately-owned cameras, none of which were able to catch much of the aftermath of the collision. By keeping his own camera off, he ensured it was his word against low-res CCTV footage. And while he might claim he was just trying to save his wife from being shot, if he’s going to go trolling for crime with his wife in the passenger seat of his unmarked cop car, he’s far too reckless to be given this much power.

Filed Under: albuquerque pd, body cams, harold medina, new mexico, police misconduct, tim keller, todd perchert