APD Community Policing

Party Patrol

by Karen Fischer

Within the last year, the Albuquerque Police Department received $274,000 in grant monies from the State of New Mexico's Traffic Safety Bureau, the State's Children Youth and Families Department and from Bernalillo County Government to fund the APD officer overtime linked to the City's Party Patrol initiative.

In 2001, the APD began operating a program that has become known as the Party Patrol. Prior to this program's implementation, APD's response to loud party calls was to send officers to the location of the call and to quiet the party down as quickly as possible. Because of the large volume of calls for service to which APD patrol officers are dispatched, the police rarely spent any amount of time addressing liquor violations or attempting to hold property owners responsible for illegal behavior. After a number of high profile incidents that resulted in the tragic deaths of Albuquerque area teen-agers, the Party Patrol program was developed to address underage drinking. The concept is simple. Instead of relying on on-duty police officers to handle loud party calls, a team of officers is deployed to answer only loud party calls. Because these officers have no other call responsibility, they can spend more time at the loud party calls. As a result, officers can take more enforcement action against minors in possession of alcohol, adults serving alcohol to minors and enforcing premise liability laws. These officers are also more effective at breaking up parties rather than just telling the occupants at a residence to quiet down.

The results have been dramatic. Since the program's inception three years ago, Party Patrol officers have responded to over 900 party calls. Additionally, officers have issues approximately 6,200 citations for minors in possession of alcohol, made 113 DWI arrests, 281 misdemeanor arrests and 37 felony arrests.

Should you become aware of any possible underage drinking parties occurring in you neighborhood, please report this immediately to the APD's non-emergency phone number at 242-COPS. Any incidents of crimes in progress or other emergencies should be called in on the 911 emergency lines.

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