A police chief in New Mexico told investigators he intentionally left his body camera off after he crashed into another driver earlier this year, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination, according to a new internal investigation.
"It blew my mind because it's so preposterous," lawyer and former Albuquerque police officer Tom Grover told KOAT last Friday.
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Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and his wife were in an unmarked police pickup truck the morning of Feb. 17, heading to a press conference. Medina had stopped at a red light when he said two people started fighting on the sidewalk next to his truck, according to the report. Then one of the individuals pulled out a gun and fired a shot, Medina said after the incident.
Surveillance video shows Medina accelerating across the busy intersection, through the red light. His pickup darted between two cars and then T-boned a Mustang. The other driver was hospitalized with severe injuries, including eight broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a broken shoulder blade, a collapsed lung and multiple cuts, KOAT reported in March.
Medina powered his body camera on "to prove he had it with him," the recently-released Internal Affairs report notes. But he told investigators he "intentionally and purposefully did not record the interaction of the crash because he was invoking his 5th Amendment right not to self-incriminate."
Grover compared that admission to a "nuclear bomb."
"The notion that he has a Fifth Amendment right would suggest that he's in custody," Grover told KOAT. "He's not in custody. He's at work."
Albuquerque Police Department rules do not allow officers to avoid recording "mandatory recording incidents based on the fact that the evidence captured on that video may be used in a subsequent criminal investigation," the investigation notes.
Medina accepted and signed two letters of reprimand in July — one for unsafe driving in a department-issued vehicle and one for failing to record the incident.
KOAT legal analyst John Day told the outlet Medina's actions may violate state law.
New Mexico statute requires activation of a body-worn camera "whenever a peace officer is responding to a call for service or at the initiation of any other law enforcement or investigative encounter between a peace officer and a member of the public."
It also prohibits "deactivation of a body-worn camera until the conclusion of a law enforcement or investigative encounter."
The Albuquerque Police Department did not respond to a request for comment on the Internal Affairs report Monday.
