Albuquerque Police Department; APD Tape 40

Well, I mean, it was not like we're we're the boys in honor against each other. He's kind of providing the in -depth. But the other option is the boardroom, but that's just a boardroom, you know, I mean, it looks totally fake. This at least is his office. And then I don't know if I'm ready to go to the bar, you know, I think it's worth, I think I think it's fun. Okay. So I could get out of this chair. Yeah. Oh, don't get out of this chair. I'm stating your name and position. Joe Paulissar and I'm the chief of police in the Albuquerque Police Department. Okay. Let's start off with, you know, the attempt of this, the purpose of this documentary is to, you know, is to follow, you know, a person from, you know, orientations through graduation, you know, and also to make it, you know, to document, you know, the training process for a well -trained officer, what price does society pay for a poorly -trained officer?

I think it's pretty obvious what price society could, you were probably hitting there, but like when I phrased these things, you could throw the question back to me in the statement. You know, okay. Yeah. What price does society pay for a poorly -trained police officer? I think it would be pretty obvious to the average citizen. Police officer is charged with an awesome responsibility. Has the power to restrict people's liberties, arrest them, and also has the power to take a life, if need be. That's an awesome responsibility, and so the training of an individual who has those kinds of responsibilities needs to be the best we can give them, no matter where they serve. Who's qualified to instruct, you know, the kids?

Well, we have one of, and I'm not saying this because I'm the chief of the Albuquerque Police Department. We have one of the finest, if not the finest, police academies in the country, and I believe that with my heart and soul. I think the agency is one of the finest. It's very progressive. We're looked to not only here in the state for innovative ideas and innovative training and concepts, but we're looked to at the national level as well. I have friends all over the world in the police field, and I've traveled extensively, and I've seen other agencies. And I'll stack Albuquerque's department and academy up against almost any. Who's qualified to train? We don't just take people who want to be instructors at the academy. They have to have demonstrated their abilities and expertise in the field that they're training. Our full -time staff and instructors at the academy have extensive resumes. Many are considered experts in their field, and then the instructors that are throughout our department who are

doing other functions, who come into instruct, as well as some outside instructors. We have just a fine, fine cadre of instructors at our academy. When the public sees this film, one thing they're going to notice is the Harnish Military Discipline. I'm a prior service, I'm a Vietnam vet, and I realized the value of discipline in an organization. But what's the reason for this discipline? Well, I don't know that I would categorize it as harsh military discipline. Certainly, we have discipline in our academy. We are a paramilitary organization that is part of policing, and we try to provide the officers everything from

communication skills and how to deal with and treat the public. Community policing concepts are constantly being weaved in and out of all of our training blocks. That's something that occurs constantly. But we also, the reality of the situation is that people who choose to be police officers have to know that there could very well come a time in their careers when they are asked to use deadly force, or when they're rolling around in a back alley at three o 'clock in the morning with someone who was high on PCP or methamphetamine who's trying to kill them, who's trying to take their gun and kill them. And so we're trying to give them just an enormous base of knowledge and show them that they have an inner strength, that they may have to go

to to save their own life, to save a fellow officers' life or to save a citizen's life, that they have that within them. So that's all part of it. All right, on the next question, okay, you've been on the force at 77, I mean, you've seen a society albuquerque, I remember the, I remember the, and I was a participant in the statute of limitations as right now in the Roosevelt riot and also the demonstrations over at, you know, over at, you know, at the Kent State, we have seen, you know, the society go from, you know, our society go from Vietnam, post -Vietnam to the meat generation, the 80s, and now we're in what the health generation of the 90s, you know, what, from your vantage point as, you know, as an officer, and somebody who has been actively involved,

you know, you know, could you give an oversight to me about this? Sure, an oversight of how things have changed, not only in the community, but in policing across this country. We, many, many police departments have been reactive, completely reactive and tied to 9 -1 -1. You call we come, that's our function. And as a chief of police, I can tell you to run an organization that is just 9 -1 -1 driven, you call we come, would be very, very easy to do, compared to trying to run an organization that is trying to change, organizationally change the way we do business as many, many police agencies are doing right now. To one of providing the officers an ownership, and by that I mean, where these officers are anchored to their beats, by more than

just a call sign, to where they take ownership and territorialness of the section of the city and the watch that they're on, and they own it. And then building the partnerships with that community, with the neighborhood associations, with the business leaders, with the churches, and on and on and on. And then problem -solving, we used to do it a long, long time ago. It used to be where a foot beat or a bicycle was state of the art, and then in the 70s and 80s it became cars and computers. We got away from that, and now we're going full circle again to try and get the officers to know their community and the community to know their officers. Things are just changing in this world and in policing. And it's very difficult in a military setting or in a police setting to change an organizational culture. What is our job? What is it that we're supposed to do?

And since I believe in my heart and my soul that the vast majority of people who come to policing as a profession are answering the calling and it's a calling to public service. They truly want to make a difference in their community and they want to improve the quality of life of their citizens. And if that is true, as I believe it is, then it's very easy to show an officer, this is how we can do that. It's not just throwing people in jail and writing them tickets. It's helping that neighborhood figure out how we can reduce the speeders coming through or keep the bikes from being stolen out of the driveways at night and those kind of things. Okay. You know, what do we talk about? You know, like, what are we talking about? The fighting 44th versus the 77th. You know, from your day, sir, you know, 20 years

ago, 20 years ago, why don't we talk about the change that has occurred in your career? Sure. I entered the Albuquerque Police Academy on January 3rd, 1977 and was a member, a proud member of the 44th cadet class. We started about 28 or 29 cadets on day one. We graduated about 18 and it's my understanding that the 77th is about the same. I think it's important to note that not everybody who wants to wear this uniform gets the opportunity to, that clearly 2 or 3 percent of everybody who fills out an interest card for our department makes it to the front door of our academy. And I think that's important to show that we don't just take anybody that wants to. Not everybody's cut out to be a police officer. Again, it's an awesome responsibility. So you can then see how many people are

recruiting in selection units section has to process to see the class of say 30 or 40 cadets. Of the 30 or 40 cadets that are seated on day one in orientation, we average about 10 percent or more loss by the time they graduate, sometimes a little more. So the people who finally graduate and then are pressed into service and serving their community in the city of Albuquerque have made a major commitment. They've gone through quite a bit and they should be very, very proud as should their community that they are the best, that we just don't put anybody out there on the streets of Albuquerque. Things that have changed, when I graduated the police academy in April of 1977, I spent my first two years working the South Broadway area on the graveyard, the midnight shift, if you will. And back in those

days we didn't have computers. In fact, we didn't have walkie talkies. Our radios, which was our lifeline, were permanently mounted in the patrol cars. And when you got out on a call that you were dispatched on, you were on your own. You may have had your partner whether you're depending on the call. And radio didn't know where you were until you got back on the radio and said, you know, I'm clear and everything's okay and I'm ready for my next call. But we also knew, we talked about ownership and beat integrity. Back then, if a radio operator tried to dispatch an officer from another area to a call in my beat, I'd get angry. And nine times at a 10, that officer would grab the mic and tell the radio operator, you know, that's my beat. I'll be done with the call amount at five or ten minutes, I'll take it. You actually kidded your peers about poaching your calls. There was

ownership. I knew who the bad people were and the crooks in my neighborhoods. I knew who the good people were and the neighborhood leaders in the business community. I owned it. I was territorial about it. In the early 80s, we got computers in our cars. And the thing that hurt us there was, is these computers, while they helped us, they also hurt us a lot in this regard. Because what they did was, they were mindless. And all the computer could do was, I have a pot full of 25 calls here in this area of town. And as soon as an officer's clear, I need to send them or her. And that's all it did. So what we ended up doing over the next 10, 12 years was creating an environment to where officers, they may be worked. They may be assigned to South Broadway. But they were answering calls, indeed, farms, in the North Valley, downtown, Morellas, the zoo, and all night

going back and forth, because the computer would just kick out the next call, it was in the hopper. We took away that territorialness and that ownership. We also, as a department, failed to keep pace with the explosive growth of this city. And so what ended up happening was, we don't have enough police officers. We've got 20 or 30 calls holding. And we've just got to clear the calls as best we can. So we took away the officers' ownership and territorialness. We are now struggling to get that back by hiring more officers by using alternative responses to what we normally would dispatch officers on. And those kind of things. And then building the partnerships with the community and problem solving what needs to be problem solved. So those are the major changes I've seen in the 20 years I've been here. And from, oh, by the way, did you want some water or something like that? Now, why would, you know, giving that this last decade or the 20th century, why would anyone want to be an

officer now? Again, I'm going to go back. It's corny as it may sound to what I said earlier in this interview. I believe that the vast majority of people who come to policing are truly answering the calling to public service. And they want to make a difference. It's not a paycheck. I mean, you know, we can't compete with private industry. And frankly, what police officers are being asked to do in the 1990s versus what we were asked to do when I came on in the 70s is vastly different. The job description is totally different. And the expectations of the public are completely different. The public expects certain things out of their police. And it's not just call when you come. So come when you call. Those are the kind of things that I think are challenging. It's an extremely rewarding profession. You can see those kind of differences. You can make a difference. You can improve the quality of life.

And that's what I think is why people would still want to enter what I consider one of the most admirable professions in the world. And why did you want to be an officer, sir? For all those reasons. I owned my own business at the time that I was offered the job here. When I graduated high school in 1970, I was driving a truck. And I was a volunteer firefighter in the community that I lived. And many of the volunteer firefighters that I fought fires with were police officers who, again, that calling to public service, they were volunteering on their off times to serve their community in a volunteer firefighter capacity. It got me very, very interested in the field. And I began to compete back on the east coast where I lived. But at that time, in the area where I lived, the economy was in very, very bad

shape. Police departments were laying police officers off. They weren't really hiring them. And I go west, young man. And I started to compete for jobs out here west of Mississippi. Albuquerque was extremely inviting to me. I competed for the job. I was offered a job in the 44th cadet class, took it without a question. I gave up, I had my own business at the time. I was making fairly good money and sold it. And came out here for a $3 .61 cent an hour job with no guarantees. Because as you've seen in your documentary, there's no guarantee that once you enter the academy, you're going to graduate. But I did that. And this city is my home. I met my wife here. My children are going to grow up here. Whether I stay with this department as the chief or not,

I'm going to raise my family here. This is my home. It's a great place. And I consider myself very, very lucky. I don't know. Are we doing? Let's just take the case. Again, going back to the comments that were made about, you know, an organic kind of thing. It's constantly changing. Our procedures and policy manual, our training, our academy. It's a living, breathing thing that changes day in and day out. Hopefully answering those questions you have and how do you prepare? We're not just about protecting and serving. I mean, if you look in our documents on the sides of our police cars, on the official letters that come out of my office, the message we're trying to send is that we're in step with our community in all those aspects. So to break down that them and us, to get those officers ingrained in them from the very beginning, that we're

here to work in partnership with the citizens of our community. We're part of the community and to make this a better place. Tough question. Who comes first? That's an easy question. I mean, when we raise our hand and take that oath, we are here. Our whole job is to serve the citizens. And I mean, that's what we do. And I wouldn't put it as who comes first, who comes second. Obviously, I want every man and woman in this department to take care of their partner. Because if we don't take care of each other, we can't take care of the community. But I think it's much bigger than that in trying to divide who's who comes first. We need to take care of everybody. What the training is about and then what the job is about. You know, those officers walked in. It would have been real nice. You know how one of those officers could have broken the ice. Just like that. And change your friend's opinion of the Albuquerque Police Department about cops in general. Have just one of those officers walked up and just entered into casual conversation with somebody

at your pool table. They have a gun. Hey, you mind if can I can I take a shot? Grab the stick and just ended into that kind of conversation. Would have broke the ice and melted it right away. And within five minutes, they left. Your friends would have had a totally different opinion of my department. Let me say we try to recruit the very best. And I think we do a pretty good job of it. We train constantly. From the moment they come into the police academy to the moment they...