Albuquerque Police Department; Apd 37

Oh Oh Boy like that Very nice And this actually works as a benefit having a slats. Yeah, yeah, they do So where's my name? Right so now for the record which might you know stating your name and your position My name is CJ Hanigan, and I'm the director of training for the Albuquerque Police Department. Okay, why don't we You know a brief history of the you know of the academy You know the name of this documentary is the 77th

Therefore there were 76 classes you know beforehand You know like the first class was when right actually I spoke with Sheriff Bowditch I'm not sure if you're familiar with Sheriff Bowditch Joe Bowditch, but he was actually in one of the very first academies He was in the third academy, and that started the third academy was in 57 March of 1957 So it was quite a while ago And I talked to Joe and one of the things he talked about was that you know back then there really was no structure to the training And of course when when the Albuquerque Police Department first started having training They weren't sure what Avenue they wanted to take and he said number one. They didn't wear a uniform There was no standards. There was no procedures rules and regulations Basically, it was just a lot of classroom. They showed up. There was no physical training. There was no running There was no weight training

He said that the extent of Any kind of physical training was like tumbling exercises, and I found that kind of interesting But again back back in the late 50s is when we first started an academy But all they were really concerned with back then was trying to pass on the academics of police work There was firearms training and Again, like I said, there was no standards as far as uniform Haircuts things of that nature and really when when the officers the academy was only eight weeks long and when the Individuals graduated from the police academy they went directly to the street and Basically, there was no cars. There was no walkie -talkie. They were given a badge and a gun and they had an understanding a basic understanding of what the laws were to enforce but They were also given a dime and they were told to call in every hour So again, you know, there's so many things that were different and that the training didn't incorporate KDT training, computer

training, defensive tactics training, physical training, Community -oriented policing training, nothing of that nature However, one thing they did talk about was that Joe talked about was that actually there was community policing because they did walking beats And that's kind of what we're going back to now are walking beats. So it's interesting to see How we've kind of come full circle that was back in the 50s late 50s. Okay Like you know, one thing I've noticed for the purpose, you know What while doing this documentary is that there was One thing that impressed me was the use of scenarios like you know, there was a group of actors that would come in and like these guys were like You know, like a suicide jumper the You know the suicide jumper the The homeless gets a frenic, you know, and over and then also the scenarios with you know with their brother officers You know like you know suspicious person. Can we talk about you know moving from that to the use of You know, the sophisticated form of training. Sure When I came

on the department 79, you know late 79 We still didn't really have scenario training and I think it's something that's developed recently And one of the things that we're trying to incorporate incorporate right now this Academy is we're trying to do much more scenario training than we've ever done And Sergeant Marlor and I just started bringing that online with with our training Academy What we have experienced I've been out here for three years as the director and what we have experienced is we were taking all these Individuals and pretty much for the most part just putting them in a classroom context for weeks and weeks and weeks To be exact somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 to 20 weeks and then we would do two days of scenario training and What we were finding is everything that these individuals were taught over the last 18 to 20 weeks Couldn't possibly be remembered at the very end for two days of training and with the help of Sergeant Jerry Hewitt from the Phoenix Police Department the way we've been redeveloping our cadet curriculum is we're going to start training in phases And we did that with the 77th class

where they will be trained for about five weeks with a certain goal in mind To be able to do a minor traffic stop to be able to deal with a low -level person, you know antagonistic To write a report to write a citation, okay? Just basic low -level skills and then at the end of that five weeks They will be required to demonstrate through scenario training what they learned and of course what we found is That and I think everyone really knows this is that it's much better to train someone through practical Application than it is to have them sit in a classroom for 20 weeks So that's really the whole philosophy all we're doing is we're kind of looking at it as a medical School approach where you don't just look at what is wrong And you don't just teach for one part of the body, you know like how to do an appendectomy But you look at a general area and then you you teach through that So the second phase of course would be escalated and then we go to a higher degree of Proficiency that is expected and trained

for and we're looking at three Groups of scenario training in five phases One thing I've noticed You know about this about about you know The Academy training is that it's a dynamic You know it's a dynamic you know mechanism. It's not static like for instance like unless apologize to you guys like You know at the beginning of the filming. I just realized that you guys were putting together You know the syllabus and like you know you were making changes and tweaking it. You know even as I was so like you know But the thing though that it you know it showed me that even though that I was stressing you guys out by being here No, was that this is a dynamic mechanism that this is an ongoing growing organ. Let's talk about that for me Well, I think it's real important One of the the commitments that I made to training is that I would provide the best training available not only for The Academy and the cadet training but for incumbent officers and

I think law enforcement has become one of the most Challenging Professions in the country and you need to stay on top of things. So My commitment was that we would provide that best training available What we came to realize is that in a law enforcement profession and in the Academy One of the things we had been doing is that we had been teaching what we had always taught and That we weren't redeveloping our curriculum and that we weren't really staying on top and that things were getting outdated and some classes Really didn't pertain any longer and certainly there was a whole multitude of areas that needed to be addressed We we can have things from the outside Impact us the New Mexico state legislature the federal government OSHA The mayor's office the chief's office Whatever is going on in society today and whatever these officers are going to be faced with on the streets They need to train for

and so I Think in general cops have a tendency to be resistant to change and I'm certainly not you know Above that or beyond that. I'm actually part of that and it's kind of hard to go back and look at what you've always done and say Let's change that and I think Especially with Sergeant Marlar is the class sergeant and Sergeant Castro is the end -service sergeant I've got a lot of experience and a lot of progressive ideas and so we've been really just experimenting as far as What's going to work and what isn't One of the things that I felt from the very beginning taking this job is it would be a tremendous responsibility You know as a supervisor you're responsible for other people other than just yourself and To be responsible for training police officers was a tremendous burden and responsibility one that I never took lightly and Really the thing that made it easy for me was having such an incredibly high

-level Of dedication and commitment experience in my staff and together we just keep refining it We're trying we're trying to provide the best training we can and we're trying to be you know one of the best police Academies in the country and you don't always know what's the right approach and what is the right answer But you're certainly willing to to try things and incorporate different ideas So we're very especially now very static in our training Okay, now some you know somebody watching my documentary Our documentary you know would say would see some you know some of the the vestiges of You know of military style discipline close ordered drill. Why is it necessary? I know the answer to this question, you know, but why is it necessary you know to instill a sense of discipline and you know into A bit of a cadet Of course our philosophy and I think you can talk to anyone on the staff Oh, we have to the chief of police and what we're trying to do here at the

academy is we're trying to prepare these young men and women For the job they're going to do we're trying to do it in an environment where they will be safe I think especially the public looking at what happened in LA With the bank robbery that went foul and the bad guys were wrapped in body armor and they were armed with AK -47 rifles They had numerous thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition and what we have to prepare for at the academy is the worst possible scenario And yes for the most part day in and day out The job duties and responsibilities of police officer may not entail that kind of encounter But we want every single officer to know within him or herself That if they ever are in the fight for their life or if they are ever engaged in the use of deadly force that they have that mindset that they can survive and It's very important for us to know that these officers are in a position where they can go out and do the job in every capacity of a law enforcement officer where they can deal with the community with dignity and respect where they have moral

courage Where they have a high level of professionalism and where they have Survival skills and that we train them at the best possible level for them to be able to go home at the end of their shift Because that is the most important thing to me in training a law enforcement officer is that they go home to their loved ones at the end of their shift bottom line All right, oh, let me ask you this. Who's Roger Huisington? Roger Huisington was one of our police officers. He had spent 20 years on the department He spent the majority of his career in the field He spent three years in DWI. He spent eight years on our SWAT team. He spent a couple years in rope and towards the end of his career He had had a heart attack and he had to leave rope well Shortly after the first heart attack he had a second heart attack and he died as a police officer very young He was only I think 46 years old Roger in the minds of many people on this police department that knew

him was The highest level of integrity respect pride fairness compassion And he had an incredible sense of humor Roger was extremely dedicated to his wife and his five children and he was incredibly dedicated to his profession and law enforcement And we felt that it was very befitting To rededicate the academy in his honor upon his death because this is what we wanted our cops to be like to be like Roger Huisington To have his dedication to have his commitment not only to his job, but to his family to have his sense of humor And he was one of the best cops that the Albuquerque police department has ever seen Okay, now I'm played devil's advocate You know like All right, you know first off, let me preface you know this question With this caveat see I'm sounding like

Alexander Hays now, but you're scaring me I'm sorry Not in comparison APD in comparison like with You know like you know with the New York City police, but what you know what's coming down recently with the New York City police department like yesterday I caught a yesterday. I caught You know a video package on TV now and old Frank Serpico back from the city's came up and you know say this is you know this I mean this situation is wrong But then you know APD in comparison like you and for it and you know with New York and then also like Miami like for instance like but it's like you once every three years There's a major riot in Miami, you know concerning like you know It seems that officers overstepping Their bonds going from excesses excessive force to brutality You know that the people would you know, I mean like you know and I'm not judge of that. I would just say this is a

statement of fact You know, and then also like you would sit situate what happened in Los Angeles, you know the Rodney King Situation, you know and all the rest you know APD has a book you know to from what I've seen from you know as a journalist You know like you know, I mean it's you know, it's a it's a good record for like the last year we had a riot You know that may have been caused by improper action was like Roosevelt Park in 7071, you know, and that's a but that's my god. That's over 2027 years ago So like you know, this is pretty good track record, but Now that I said that now I can get to them But there you know, there's some you know members of our community out there that say that you know That Albuquerque police is too aggressive that it Um That it's you know that there's a schism, you know, uh between um You know the officers they feel that there's a schism between the officers and You know and some members of the

community and like and so let's talk about that for a moment Okay, um, well, I was born and raised in Chicago. I grew up in Cook County So I'm aware of you know big city politics and big city corruption on police departments I honestly believe that the Albuquerque police department um has A very high level of professionalism. However, I mean In reality, we're all human. We all make mistakes and none of us are above the law I think that for the most part in in the community and that's what makes the job of being a police officer This is so difficult is that it's so diverse Um a classic example when I was in the horse mounted unit and I worked the state fair I would sit right at the entry to midway and on one hand you'd have all the gang members hanging out and right in front of me I'd have a man and a woman with their two small children that wanted to pet the horse and then two seconds later

I'd have somebody who was either high on drugs or using alcohol come up and want to smack the horse And you had to be able to be very kind and compassionate and sensitive and friendly To these individuals and at the same time be able to deal with the escalated level of force and violence that's going on over here So it's very difficult when you're a police officer because There are a lot of different areas that you have to deal with one of the the areas is use of force and One of the most difficult things that an officer has to do is be able to enforce the law Be professional and still accomplish whatever it is here. She's trying to do take someone into a custody Make an arrest and at times officers do have to be aggressive and act aggressively What happens is and when the problems arise is when that level of aggression is beyond A necessary level and that's one of the most difficult things to teach in an academy context Okay, one of the things that I have learned is that How a person is raised what their background is what

their morals are What their ethics are has far much more of a contribution to that individual as a police officer than what we can possibly hope to teach them in an 18 -week academy And I think the other thing is is you have to recruit good people You have to train them you have to discipline them They have to understand what the rules and regulations are and I think one of the things that the Albuquerque police department has done And especially with chief Polazar and deputy chief bergoyne when he was here Is they set a high level of expectation and that those individuals whether they were officers or whether they were supervisors If they didn't conform to those standards and those expectations, they would be disciplined And I think as long as you teach people what is acceptable and what isn't They're going to conform to that. Of course. There's always going to be exceptions And I think in big cities like New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Miami When that level isn't real high and when those standards aren't Enforced as far as how aggressive you are how excessive you are enforce then people are going to keep pushing those boundaries And I think that's one of the things the Albuquerque police department has done is

we have set a high standard and that we aren't tolerant of excessive force and aggression unreasonable aggression and so Therefore you're not going to see that behavior exhibitedly in a great proportion Of course we have those individuals who are going to push the boundaries no matter what But more often than not what I have seen is if people are you know Overstepping that boundary. They're being disciplined. They're being suspended or they're even being terminated I've seen that more in the last Four years three or four years since chief Polazar has been the chief Then I have the entire time I've been on this department So you need to make it real clear what is acceptable and what isn't discrimination Isn't accepted in an academy whether it's racial sexual sexual orientation Anything and then that is filtered out among the ranks and throughout the department the standard is set and I believe The probably the most valuable lesson that I have learned Being a police officer and being a

supervisor is that you lead by example and I think that's so important and we need Good strong leaders on this police department all the way from the chief of police down through our first line Supervisors our sergeants they set the tone They lead by example and we as police officers our leaders in this community and every call that we go on we represent The institution of law enforcement. We represent the albuquerque police department and That every call we go on we are leaders in this community people look up to us and so it's all to me. It's all about leadership Okay, that's that you're doing fine. How much do we have left? We're almost done Oh, good Okay, now um Let's talk about you know leading by example and also let me also rehead the you know

The comment though about like a schism like about the And the us versus them mental. I mean, you know, well, you see like a lot of you know, it's so easy to adopt and us versus them You know mentality like for instance, let's say that you know, I know you know, I'm at a barn grill grab it a burger in a beer And I've seen this happen and an officer would come in and immediately like the patrons would You know freeze up and I you know, and I think that this would be And I was just thinking my goodness, you know, you know like um Immediately, you know just by the introduction of a person in uniform A's um, you know like for expert like if a fireman came in You know, there would not be that You know that that that tenseness You know, and um, I think though, but then also I would also have to say that it might be Also like you're perhaps this

might be exhibited, you know by the officer um, like you know superco talked about the code of blue You know and like you know and it seems though that there seems to be in us versus them mentality That's exhibited by everybody in the game You know, so let's talk about that from well Well, one of the things that Jerry Hewitt talks about in his cultural diversity training is that you know the police Force is as a subculture. It's you know like a police culture And that's exactly one of the things that we have done is we have instilled this us versus them And really from having taught the problem -solving training for our community oriented policing on this department One of the things that was real clear is we went back and we looked at you know The late 1800s and what cops were then and where they came from and how they were taught Um, and what training which was non -existent then to be cops and then we went from the political error Where you basically became a cop by political appointment. It was who you knew how much money was there You know what families knew what and

they were politically appointed well with Jair the Jadver J Edgar Hoover administration That was one of his goals he wanted to prevent or to make a Much higher level of professionalism and we went into the professional error And there were so many good things about that because we were trying to get away from how corrupt Police were they would only patrol certain neighborhoods. They would stay away from houses of prostitution if they were paid money Um, and that's it was all corruption. It was all based on corruption and money and power and politics We're trying to get away from that um and trying to make cops a higher level That's when they brought in higher standards of recruiting. That's where they brought in Um, higher standards of training and that's where we kind of in a good sense We wanted to professionalize law enforcement make it more of a valid profession but what happened is we Created an image by these high levels of training and what we did is you know Police officers, you know, they can leap tall buildings in a

single bound and they can do all these things and um, you know, they can catch the bad guy every time and they can shoot the gun out of his hand and all these things that you know became uh Shown on television and people got this image of cops we created it ourselves and the public had this image And in a sense we were trying to professionalize, but we were also doing damage because We put cops on this pedestal and being able to do all these things and not only that they could do it themselves It just called the cops and they'll do it Well, I think with community policing The big thing behind that is that no we can't do it alone and that yes We do need the help of the community and that's the biggest thing we're trying to do away with In this organization is that us and them and in in all honesty one of the biggest areas that you know that was permeated Was right here within the Albuquerque Police Department itself where we had civilian and sworn and we've always you know Kind of like had our civilians way down here. They were kind of at the bottom And you know if you're not a cop then you're really not that important and your job isn't that

important and you don't get the recognition and and You don't get to support and you don't get the encouragement and and just recognition for a good job It's like unless you're in uniform and out on the streets throwing you know the bad guys in jail Then you're not really as important So that's one of the things that the Albuquerque Police Department and I think again chief Polazar is really trying to To do away with is to show that level of importance and civilians and that do away with that us and them You know where cops and you're not there's a little Ziggy cartoon with two cops driving down in a police car Ziggy and Ziggy cops and it says on the side where cops and you're not you know and and we show that in our training And we really want to do away with that um, and I think that's the whole premise behind community policing Is all we have been doing in the past for a hundred years is going from call to call to call and the calls Just keep coming in and the calls keep stacking But if we start involving the community if we start involving other elements of government Then it's not just a police

response and it's not just a police responsibility It's the community responsibility Because what we have done in the past hasn't worked for the last hundred years is as far as Being able to deal with all the crime and all the violence that that exists in this community All right Okay, all right Seiji All right, you've been on the force since 79 you know 18 years One of the fourth evidently You love your job Don't tell me why you love your job Um, I think in the very beginning when I was 20 years old and I applied to the Albuquerque Police Department In my heart I was like many other individuals who come on the Albuquerque Police Department that they want to help people um, and that That is still the bottom line premise for me. I have been involved as a supervisor more with dealing with the officers on this police department And certainly in training.

I feel that I have a big I can have a tremendous impact on the community By how I train and supervise police officers Um, again like I said earlier. I believe in leading by example I believe that Anyone who works for me that I should be in a position where Everything that I expect them to do I am willing to do myself first and I may not always do it It's one of the reasons why I run with the cadets every morning When I was in the horse mounted unit, you know, I used to do all the duties and responsibilities that the officers had But um, I think I have a contribution to this community. I I believe that um When a when a person picks up the phone and they call the police that They're in a position where they need help and they want someone to respond that has compassion that has intelligence That has integrity that has good communication skills And my commitment to the department now is to do the best job that I can and providing the training of these individuals And weeding out the ones that

don't belong here or don't belong in this profession so that we have Upstanding young men and women who wear this uniform and enforce the laws in this city Okay, Randy, is there anything you want to see that you want to ask? No, we have no power Now we're coming to the favorite question of all interviews the last question. Is there anything you wish to act? Basically At every graduation, you know I speak to the officers and I and I ask them to treat people with dignity and respect and to treat them as they would want to be treated Is they would want to have a member of their family treated in that same situation? I ask them to remember where they came from because I think that's so important You know you weren't always a police officer remember where you came from and remember the people that helped get you helped you get there and to ask them to be respectful to themselves To fellow officers and to the community that they serve um And of course I ask them to remember Roger Hoysington and

those things that um Those qualities that he possessed Which led to the rededication of this academy and his honor um His strength his courage um His compassion his incredible sense of humor and his dedication to his family um and his career and law enforcement and then um I just My heart lies out in the streets of albacurkey and the officers the men and women who work out there and of course for their safety Because again like I said you know in law enforcement the bottom line is that they go home at the end of the shift And it's real important to me and that um these men and women that come in here are trained to To be able to accomplish that