APD releases mid-year review of police shootings. Here's what they want to do differently.

Oct. 4—It was June 29 and Albuquerque police had Jeramiah Salyards surrounded.

Officers had tracked Salyards to a bus stop minutes after he stabbed someone in a fast-food restaurant drive-thru. As Salyards — knife in hand — walked toward a group of people, police unloaded more than 16 rounds, striking Salyards and two men near him.

An officer initially handcuffed one of the men — who had been shot multiple times — before another officer stopped him, saying, "He's good... innocent."

"I've been shot... Why did you shoot me?" the man asked police as they took his bloodied clothes off and counted the bullet holes.

One officer who had fired her gun replied, "It's not your fault man, I'm sorry." Another said, "(Salyards) was about to freaking stab him."

It was one of four times this year that Albuquerque police shot at someone with bystanders nearby — firing more than 40 rounds inside a supermarket in another — something the Albuquerque Police Department now feels officers need better training to deal with.

That was one of several findings APD released on Wednesday after analyzing the seven police shootings, three of them fatal, which occurred between January and June 2023. While some shootings had no specific recommendations, the department noted deficiencies, made training and equipment suggestions and gathered statistics from all of them.

The six-month review process — started in 2022 as APD tallied a record high of 18 police shootings — is separate from the administrative and criminal investigations, which are still ongoing.

"One of the things that I recognized is, there was a better way to do things, there was a way for us to get more information out of these shootings," Police Chief Harold Medina said of the review process during a briefing Wednesday. "And we're actually going above and beyond what is expected from us under our settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. And we are taking the lead to ensure that we have a process that works well beyond them leaving the city of Albuquerque, and that we're able to ensure that if there's any patterns, or anything that's occurring that is of concern, that we address the issues."

Without giving much detail, Medina also said APD would hire a use-of-force expert from elsewhere to be "an internal monitor" reviewing police shooting investigations once the DOJ leaves.

APD has been involved in the federally mandated reform effort since 2014, when a Department of Justice investigation found officers displayed a pattern of excessive force exacerbated by insufficient oversight, inadequate training and ineffective policies.

The department's success with the reforms backslid in recent years until reports released in 2022 showed APD made significant gains in complying with the Court Approved Settlement Agreement with officials setting a goal of full compliance by spring 2024.

The mid-year review, completed by a working group of APD leadership, found that all of those shot by officers were armed with a weapon. Five of them had a gun and, among those, two shot at officers, while the two other people were armed with an edged weapon, such as a knife.

Those figures do not include the two bystanders shot by police.

None of the people shot by police had a history with APD's Crisis Intervention Team, although the relatives of one man, 42-year-old David Gaylor, told police he had previous mental health issues. On May 19, Gaylor threatened police with a spear and one officer used a Taser on Gaylor before they shot and killed him.

The review found no suggestions for officers in that incident.

Less-lethal force was used in two of the police shootings but, according to the review, could've been used in two others and possibly "avoided the need for deadly force."

In a June 24 gunfight with Marc Peter — which sent 58 bullets flying across a bustling supermarket — the review found "there may have been a missed opportunity" for officers to use less-lethal force while they followed the 41-year-old man through an alleyway beforehand.

And in Salyard's death, in which police fired two separate volleys of bullets, police could have used less-lethal force after the first round of gunfire, according to the review.

Those two shootings, along with two others where bystanders were present, led the working group to implement changes in training, including "safety rules when pointing or shooting their firearm, identifying threats and non-threats with moving targets and overall awareness of environments."

Deescalation was used by officers in two of the shootings and was not feasible in another four "based on the facts of each case," according to the review. It could have been used, along with the less-lethal force between the volleys of gunfire in Salyard's death.

The review found that four of the seven shootings occurred on a Wednesday or Friday and six of them happened between the hours of 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. It also found 13 of the 19 officers who fired their guns had six or fewer years of experience, while six officers had more than eight years.

Only one officer had been involved in a prior police shooting, according to the review.

As a result of the findings, APD will supply more less-lethal tools to patrol officers and has already ordered 80 more 40 mm launchers, which fire foam rounds, to give out. The department will also prioritize command training for supervisors who may end up in control of incidents that could end in deadly force.

APD — at the suggestion of the use of force contractor — will evaluate its use of rifles by responding officers and, according to the review, consider reducing when and how often rifles are used.

Medina said the use of force expert, who he said APD will hire full-time, "will give us a view from the outside" to identify trends and make fast changes.

"Our hope is, the faster we could correct potential issues, the more lives that will be saved," he said, lamenting the increase seen in police shootings last year and the blame that falls to the department in the aftermath.

"So many times these officer involved shootings are not just a result of a police department but they're a result of a broken system around a police department," Medina said.

He added, "But I want the public to remember that we were the last individuals that were in contact with these individuals. And unfortunately, we caught them at the end of the chain. There are several places along the way, that there were opportunities to help individuals get them the resources they need. Sometimes that resource may have been staying in jail."