Report: New Mexico police chief claims he had constitutional right to keep his body cam turned off after accident

According to a new internal investigation, a police chief in New Mexico told investigators he intentionally left his body camera off after colliding with another motorist earlier this year, citing his right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

“It blew my mind because it's so absurd,” attorney and former Albuquerque police officer Tom Grover told KOAT last Friday.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina ran a red light on Feb. 17, 2024, after someone fired a shot near his pickup truck. He struck and seriously injured another driver but failed to turn on his body camera, violating department policy, according to an internal investigation. (City of Albuquerque)

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Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and his wife were on their way to a press conference in an unmarked police pickup truck on the morning of Feb. 17. Medina had stopped at a red light when he said two people began fighting on the sidewalk next to his pickup, according to the report. Then one of the men pulled out a gun and fired one shot, Medina said after the incident.

Surveillance video shows Medina speeding through the busy intersection on a red light. His pickup truck darted between two cars and then rammed a Mustang. The other driver was hospitalized with serious injuries, including eight broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a broken shoulder blade, a collapsed lung and multiple lacerations, KOAT reported in March.

Medina turned on his body camera “to prove he had it with him,” the recently released internal affairs report said. But he told investigators he “intentionally and knowingly did not record the events surrounding the accident because he was exercising his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.”

Grover compared this admission to an “atom bomb.”

“The notion that he has a right to imprisonment under the Fifth Amendment suggests that he is incarcerated,” Grover told KOAT. “He is not incarcerated. He is at work.”

An excerpt from the internal affairs investigation into Medina's crash on February 17, 2024. (Albuquerque Police Department IA Professional Standards)

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Albuquerque Police Department policies do not allow officers to “waive the recording of incidents on the understanding that the recording requirement exists solely because the evidence captured on the video could be used in a subsequent criminal investigation,” the investigation said.

Medina accepted and signed two letters of reprimand in July – one for unsafe driving in a company vehicle and one for failure to record the incident.

John Day, a legal expert at KOAT, told the news agency that Medina's actions may violate state law.

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A law in New Mexico requires the activation of a body-worn camera “when a police officer responds to an emergency call or when any other law enforcement or investigative encounter occurs between a police officer and a citizen.”

It also prohibits the “deactivation of a body-worn camera until the conclusion of a police or investigative dispute.”

Albuquerque police did not respond Monday to a request for comment on the internal investigations report.