Services

A message from APD's

Commander Warfield:

Greetings,

First of all I want to thank all of the associations which participated and donated items to the Officers Appreciation Day. It was a great success and all who joined in had a wonderful time. We are already planning on next years event which we hope will be bigger and better.

The area command has experienced a significant amount of success in terms of reducing crime throughout the Northwest Area Command. This is due in large part to the partnership we have forged with all of the communities, residential as well as business, throughout the command. Double digit decreases in all areas of property crime have been achieved as well as a drop in violent crimes. Continual communication between the partners has proven to be a strong facet to our attempts to improve and increase the over all quality of life within the command and the City of Albuquerque. I strongly urge and encourage everyone to communicate with us whether it is through me or any officer or civilian staff at your earliest convenience.

Pete Gelabert has done a wonderful job in encouraging and assisting in the development and placement of Neighborhood Watches throughout the northwest quadrant. Please utilize his services whenever a question about crime statistics or issues arise within your neighborhoods. His phone number is 768-4850.

Prevention

Cold weather is upon us and I would politely remind everyone about warming up vehicles in the morning and letting them run without you present is a very tempting opportunity for the car thief. We were able to almost eliminate all of these types of incidents last year due to the diligence and discipline of our residential community. If memory serves me correctly we only had a couple of these types of car thefts last year. Let's make it zero incidents of this nature this year.

Also I would like to remind everyone that the goal is to eliminate the "opportunity" for the bad guys to make victims of us. This means that we are aware of those habits which create temptation for the criminal element. Be careful with all of your personal identifiers. These are those items which create your financial identity. All documents which have your D.O.B., SSN#, names, passwords, account numbers, automobile titles and registration, should be stored properly or disposed of properly. Everyone should have a shredder to destroy those pieces of mail which ask you to open accounts or purchase items either via mail or internet should be shredded every day. Yes there a great number of people who will go through your trash in hopes they can recover even the smallest piece of information and recreate another bogus identity.

We have received numerous complaints about scams which have been generated through the internet. If it seems like it is too good to be true. YOU ARE PROBABLY RIGHT! Be on the look out for people asking for exchange, donation, or services which require you to front money to them in exchange for compensation in the future. These types of criminals are on the look out for those who are not disciplined or soft hearted.

Be cautious about what you put on any social media. Believe it or not there are folks out there looking to see what you are going to be doing or are doing right now. Posting that you are on vacation or away from your home is information that is continually being looked at by those who have bad intentions. They may not have direct access to your social media accounts but people have a tendency to communicate that information in the open and are unwittingly supplying the burglars with your vulnerability.

One of the MO's (modus operandi) of our bad guys has been to break into homes via open doors and windows. They are stealing jewelry and precious metals. I have noticed an increase in this type of theft and we have actually made a number of arrests. Here is my problem. It is difficult to identify who the owners are of these items due to the lack of information. If you own jewelry, and most of us do, please document these items by taking photos of them and storing the photos where they can be readily accessible. While the thieves are not selling the jewelry, they are melting down the jewelry and selling the precious metals in bulk to the gold exchange stores. Just a small tip. You should be marking and documenting all of your property so that it can be identified.

Don't leave GPS devices in your car along with any other small electronic equipment in your car or where it is visible. We had an uptick in auto burglary over the last couple of months and nearly 70% of all the break ins were done through an unlocked door on the vehicle.

Area Command News

As I mentioned before we have made some wonderful improvements and advancements in terms of crime within the command. I had the opportunity to speak with one of the Neighborhood Associations just last month. Tuscany N.A. held one of their annual meetings and a couple of folks informed me that there had been some problems in regards to issues around their homes which border the arroyo which runs to the south of their neighborhood. This information was brought to our attention and Pete and I did some research. Well we indeed saw a marked increase in terms of vandalism and burglary. This information was passed onto field units and last week we were able to locate and arrest three offenders who were living in a tent under a bridge at Golf Course. These offenders confessed to a large number of burglaries and other various crimes throughout the area bordering this arroyo both east and west. In another situation we received information from neighbors in the Broadstone N.A. and we were able to locate 4 offenders and recovered significant amounts of property as well as 4 stolen weapons.

These two incidents were just a couple out of the numerous instances when just the smallest bit of information leads to significant improvements.

Traffic continues to be of major concern to all in the area command. We have approximately 150,000 residents within the borders of the area command. But we also serve as a conduit for our neighbors to the north, Rio Rancho, Corrales and Bernalillo. We run approximately 200 traffic tactical operations a month to deal with issues which are brought to our attention either by crash statistics, citizen notification or personal observation. I need to know what's going on at any given time. We will continually shift our man power resources to those areas as we are notified.

Whew. A lot of information to assimilate but I think it is all very useful in reaching our common goal. Stay Safe.