To improve the city's law enforcement, the Albuquerque Police Department recently introduced a new detective academy that has already seen its first rounds of trainees.

The new academy comes at a time when the city faces a shortage of detectives and uninvestigated crimes are piling up, according to KRQE News.

"Today we started our first-ever detective academy," Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina wrote in a June 14 Twitter post. "We have to make sure our people have the best investigations training possible. This is how we make sure victims get justice."

Medina believes that this class will streamline the training process and produce more effective detectives. Officers were previously trained step by step or in stages.

“I quickly saw that some of the issues [we were] having with court cases were just based off of advanced basics, what I would call it, the art of interviewing someone properly, developing a good criminal complaint, articulating facts well and being able to get an individual in an interview or interrogation to admit certain facts that would help you prosecute the case,” Medina told KRQE News.

APD Officer Norman Shatto said that he joined the detective academy to better help his community.

“I always thought if you’re able to, you should,” Shatto told KRQE News. “And I have that ability, so I should put it to good use.”

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller told KRQE News that he believes the academy will improve the department's ability to conduct investigations and help prevent a backlog of cases. APD has been investigating 53 homicide cases since the start of the year.

Medina has been in the law enforcement field since 1994, according to the city of Albuquerque.

He was named interim Chief of Police in September 2020, and in March 2021, Mayor Keller appointed him to the position of permanent Chief of Police.