Unlike Santa Fe police chief, rank-and-file officers report even the most minor crashes

Aug. 9--On Valentine's Day, Santa Fe police Officer Oscar Holguin had an unexpected encounter with a curb.

As he drove to a call for service in his city-owned patrol car, Holguin made a U-turn at Bonitas Loop and Joshua Lane and hit a curb with his push bar. Holguin heard a scrape and thought it was just the plastics of the undercarriage. But days later, a co-worker told him the push bar appeared to be twisted.

Holguin observed the damage and immediately reported it to a supervisor, leading to an official report of the incident.

This stands in contrast to a similar accident involving his boss, Chief Andrew Padilla, who clipped a curb in his patrol car more than two months later, also while performing a U-turn, but never filed a report.

In May, top brass at the Santa Fe Police Department said the chief's accident was so minor it didn't warrant a report despite a policy requiring an outside agency to document vehicle accidents -- "no matter how minor."

The chief's accident, which sparked speculation at the police department when it went unreported, disabled his patrol car, required a tow and cost taxpayers about $1,565 in parts to repair, according to interviews and documents obtained under a public requests request.

Padilla said at the time he knew when to report an accident to another agency and when not to based on his experience as a supervisor and commander.

"This incident did not meet the criteria to be considered a crash, therefore, it was not necessary to report it as a crash," he said in a statement then and again last week.

A review of dozens of so-called uniform crash reports of vehicle accidents involving Santa Fe police since 2017 shows several instances where the rank and file reported even minor fender benders that caused minimal or cosmetic damage to their city-owned vehicles.

While the policy calls for reporting even the most minor accidents, the interpretation appears to be that single-vehicle accidents with minimal damage to the officer's car and no damage to other property are exempt from the reporting requirement, which a retired officer said may leave officers erring on the side of caution.

Retired police Capt. Adam Gallegos, also a past president of the Santa Fe Police Officers Association, said the crash involving the chief wasn't a "big deal."

"But the bigger issue to me?" he asked. "The mere fact that he failed to report it was a failure of leadership because he should be setting the example to his personnel as they would be expected -- and disciplined if they failed to report any type of crash."

Gallegos agreed a minor, single-vehicle accident with no damage to other property doesn't require an outside agency to file a report.

But in Padilla's case, he said, the chief is held to a higher standard.

"He should've led by example and reported it," he said. "Kind of the 'What's good for the goose is good for the gander' thing."

Padilla reported the incident to Deputy Chief Ben Valdez, who said the chief told him he struck a curb after responding to a call about disorderly conduct.

Padilla declined a request for an interview but reiterated in an email that his accident didn't warrant a report.

He said Holguin's curb-striking incident Feb. 14 didn't either.

"The incident ... should not have been documented as a crash. That has been clarified internally," he wrote.

Padilla did not respond when asked in a follow-up email how the matter was "clarified internally."

Gallegos said the chief's accident should have at least been documented by the city.

"If there was zero documentation, then how do they justify the repair cost?" he asked.

Repair costs to damaged police vehicles run into the tens of thousands of dollars annually. From 2017 through part of 2020, repair costs have totaled more than $106,000, according to the city.

Valdez, who is the deputy chief of administration, said not all damage to vehicles is repaired.

"The fleet manager conducts an assessment on the damage," he wrote in an email. "If a vehicle has minor cosmetic damage, these might not be repaired. If the damage is more serious in nature, it is most likely repaired depending on the age and condition of the vehicle."

Police vehicle accidents can also lead to big-dollar insurance settlements, especially if an officer is at fault.

Officers, particularly those on patrol, are bound to get into accidents.

"Patrol officers spend the majority of their time in or around their patrol vehicle -- it acts as their office," Valdez wrote. "The vehicle is equipped to keep them in the community and able to respond to calls in a timely manner."

Police employees, including officers, detectives and public safety aides, reported being involved in 227 vehicle crashes since 2017.

The incidents range from hitting traffic signs and parking gates to running over dogs and crashing into other vehicles.

But the circumstances of each crash are difficult to determine.

The review of uniform crash reports involving Santa Fe police, prompted by the chief's curb-clipping incident in April, revealed the department isn't maintaining a record of each one. Of the 227 accidents, the police department didn't have a uniform crash report for nearly 42 percent.

Assistant City Attorney Michael Prinz, the go-to person in the City Attorney's Office for matters pertaining to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, said he's unaware of any state or city law that mandates the police department to maintain a copy of uniform crash reports for accidents involving its officers.

"I'm not in a position to comment on whether the SFPD should or shouldn't maintain copies of uniform crash reports for accidents involving SFPD officers," he wrote in an email.

The police department declined to explain why it didn't have copies of all the reports.

Valdez, the deputy chief, said efforts are underway to gather all the reports from various outside agencies.

"While preparing the documents for [the public records request] it was identified that some reports did not include the uniform crash reports," he wrote. "Since that time the department has obtained the outstanding crash reports from the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office and is in the process of obtaining the remaining crash reports from other area agencies."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.

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