‘Alarm bells of the highest order’: APD chief’s testimony reveals years of deleted police texts to avoid public records

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina testified under oath in a lawsuit that he routinely deletes text messages about official business, a practice legal experts said violates a state law that requires government agencies to keep communications for at least one year.

In an October whistleblower case, Medina said he and other high-ranking APD officials have deleted texts “in a rather continuous operation” since 2018 — despite state requirements to preserve such records. The admission comes as the city has paid more than $1.4 million to settle public records violations, and city officials admit the city has no policy for retaining text messages. Legal experts said the practice undercuts transparency laws meant to keep the public informed and hold the government accountable.

“Advised time and time again” to delete

Medina testified Oct. 23 in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by seven APD academy training officers that he has been “advised time and time again to ensure that for the efficiency of our department, that we delete text messages in a rather continuous operation,” according to an official court recording from a district court trial.

Under questioning by attorney Levi Monagle, Medina said the directive came from City Clerk Ethan Watson’s office and the city’s legal department. He said the practice started in 2018 as a way to manage the volume of public records requests. APD officials were told to keep texts only in three situations: when they receive a preservation letter for litigation, when a message includes an official policy directive or when there is no other “final resting place” for the information, according to Medina.

During the trial, Medina testified under oath about Aug. 17, 2023, when he exchanged texts with APD Commander George Vega about claims that Vega’s son, a police cadet, had been hazed at the academy. Medina said both men deleted those messages that same evening.

Within days, seven training officers, six instructors and their sergeant were pulled from the academy and investigated for hazing Cadet Joshua Vega, who is George Vega’s son. The officers later filed a whistleblower lawsuit accusing the department of retaliation, and in October, a Bernalillo County jury awarded the seven staffers $155,000 each in emotional damages, for a total of $1.085 million.

Medina said he forwarded the hazing allegations to Deputy Chiefs Mike Smathers and Cori Lowe, who would handle the investigation. He said the findings from that internal affairs case would serve as the “final resting place” for the information. But when pressed, he admitted he never saw any documentation showing that the information from his deleted texts with Vega was actually preserved.

“A violation of the law”

Amanda Lavin, legal director for the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said the routine deletion of texts violates state records retention rules.

“I think it is a violation of the law,” Lavin said. “It’s a violation of the retention policies in New Mexico, which require government agencies to retain public records for certain periods of time. It’s also an obvious attempt to avoid the city’s obligations under IPRA to provide records for inspection.”

Lavin said the deletion practice will likely backfire on the city.

“They’re not helping themselves out by showing how unaccountable they’re trying to be,” she said. “I think this is just going to foster more distrust amongst the public and probably increase the number of requests they’re going to get.”

New Mexico Administrative Code 1.21.2.105 requires government agencies to retain correspondence and related records for one year. Administrative Code 1.13.4 allows deletion only for narrow categories like preliminary drafts and blank forms that have no official purpose.

Attorney calls it “a total fabrication”

Thomas Grover, an attorney who has won seven public records lawsuits against the city, said Medina’s claim that city officials told him to delete texts “seems to be a total fabrication.”

“Other high-ranking APD personnel have told me no such information and the IPRA training program given to City personnel by Ethan Watson’s office does not support this,” Grover said.

According to Grover, Medina and other senior city officials “routinely delete their messages as they both testified to this conduct in depositions in a separate matter.”

“That the chief of the largest police department in the State of New Mexico sounded so indifferent to the significance of retaining text-based communication records should send off alarm bells of the highest order,” Grover said.

He said he expects to file a lawsuit soon focused on the issue and urged lawmakers to let courts levy punitive damages when agencies knowingly destroy public records.

City admits: No retention policy

City spokesperson Gilbert Gallegos said the city “has not established a retention period for text messages” and considers them to potentially be non-records. He said no litigation hold was in place when Medina received the texts on Aug. 17, 2023.

Legal experts said state law requires agencies to retain records regardless of a litigation hold. The city did not answer whether the city clerk’s office or the city legal department directed APD to routinely delete texts, as Medina testified.

The city’s lack of a retention policy appears to conflict with Administrative Instruction 1-5, which states that “public records include electronic records and communications that relate to official city business.”

Albuquerque paid $1,449,088 to settle 27 Inspection of Public Records Act lawsuits in fiscal year 2023, according to a March 2024 City Desk analysis. Its fiscal year 2025 annual report, released in September 2025, shows the backlog of public records requests has dropped below 1,000 for the first time since June 2023.