Albuquerque Police Department; APD Tape 31

I'm always very, very pleased to be invited to attend these ceremonies and to administer the oath of office to these young officers. And no exception today is that he's honored to be addressing all of you today. When they invite me, they have basically two things they want me to do. The first thing would be to administer the oath of office. The second thing would be to impart a little dignity to these procedures. While as these guys over here all know, I'm going to be the first one. I'm not going to do the second one. Being invited, you always feel like two, that you should impart a little wisdom to these young officers. And I'm the same age as the chief. So both of us are far too young to be really accumulating. We're all wisdom, you know. So what I'm going to do is tell you a little story instead. About two weeks after I did my first commissioning ceremony, this was a long, long time ago, when I was an impetuous youth, I had a red sports car at 240SX. And as I said, two weeks after I did the first commissioning ceremony, I was driving along the UNCERT. And driving along the

UNCERT, a conservative estimate would be that I was doing 15 to 17 miles per hour over the speed limit. And when I'm driving my car, my reaction to topping the hill and seeing the swad cars, the same reaction as all of you have. The first thing you do is get a knot in your stomach. Then the second thing you do is you have a thought and you may speak something. And being a judge, I have to speak something a little more refined to the rest of you to speak. And so I said, oh, feces. I really had it. So the lights came on, pulled me over. And as I looked at my review mirror, I saw that there were two people in the car. That was a little odd. And I said, well, maybe this is a young officer in the T .O. So I started watching the unit a little more closely. And there were a few very subtle things that happened back there that gave it away. But in fact, I was dealing with a brand new officer that I had commissioned only two weeks before. First thing that I noticed before the car door even opened, I can hear the squeaking of the utility belt inside the vehicle. That's a clear sign that we got a brand new utility belt. The

officer opens the door, stands up straight and tall next to the unit, puts two fingers on the bridge of his nose and squares his cat. It takes one very stiff step forward, turns a square corner around the car door, and then closes the door behind it. As he's walking toward my car, his lips are moving, and I could figure out what was going on. So I watched as he got closer and closer, I finally figured out that he was counting kings. This guy's going to go couldn't walk without counting kings. Well, as a word of reassurance to all of you, I wanted to understand that my brother's a physical therapist, and he says, with proper rehabilitation, you all will be able to walk again without looking at me. She bought a few of that for free, I think. So anyway, the officer's approaching and he's making those little mumbling gestures with his mouth as he comes up to my car. And I'm trying to formulate a plan, as I said, I know that I'm busted, I was as guilty as you can be. I figured, what can I do to get out of this? That's probably

another thought that we all have. So I started formulating a couple of plans in my mind. The first plan was to hand in my driver's license with my car next to it. So that, he would take that and I would say, just in case you need my office number, I had a little card and said, of course, judge at the bottom. If that didn't work, then Plan B was going to be able to look up at it and go, don't I recognize you from that ceremony last year? I think I just give you the office. Well, those are my two plans, I figured, sure if I could fail on this one. So the guy stands next to my car door and as soon as he started talking, I was absolutely certain that he was a new officer because his speech was different than most other people's speech. What young officers do is they modify every noun and verb with the word sir. So, he said, sir, I think sir, that your judge were not sir and I said, well, I felt the plan C which was to be humble and we'd get it,

because it's sir, sir, and he started sweat, because he's looking back at the train officer in the squad car, he's going, sir, I don't know what to do, sir. And I said, well, I think the one you can do is do whatever you would do if there wasn't somebody in that other car watching you. Well, he wrote me a ticket for speeding in. And he thanked me for making it so easy. And he taught me something really, really important that day and that is that every day that you're on the job, every day that you confront a new situation, you're going to be tempted. You're going to take those little shortcuts that we heard about early. What you've got to do is remember that you have to do absolutely the correct thing every time you're tempted to do something that's not quite appropriate. So if you do that, if you do the right thing every time, and in the morning when you stand up and you look in the mirror, you don't like that face that you're looking at.

When you go to bed at night, you're going to go to bed with peace in your heart. So those are the only words that I have. It's do what's right every time you're tempted to do whatever you want. At this point, I'm going to ask you a good answer, please rise. Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Mexico? That you will enforce the laws of the State of New Mexico and the ordinances of the city of Albuquerque. And that you will perform all of the duties of an officer to the best of your ability, so help you God. I am both pleased and proud to be the first to call you officers of the Albuquerque Police Department. Congratulations to all of you. you.

Chief Bowles are with you and Sergeant Marta. Please come forward and assist me in the presentation. The officers prepare to come forward. Michael Archivic. Thank

you. Very the shares. Charles Green. James Collins. Thank you. Aaron

Payton. Adam Payton. Thank you. Joseph Materino. Franklin Bach. Thank you. Russell Moore. Thank

you. Stephen Powers. Stephen Powers. Michael Thompson. Lucas

Thompson. Thank you. Thank you. And last but certainly not least, Derek Wolf. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen,

17 weeks ago we took from you these family members and friends. Today you and the community have been 18 police officers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We remember to treat people with dignity and respect.

You have all worked very hard to achieve a very high level of physical fitness. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.