Eden says he would have hired APD training director despite NMLEA investigation

The Albuquerque City Council posed several questions to Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden regarding his hiring of Jessica Tyler as the director of the department’s training academy at Wednesday’s council meeting, and Eden said he would have hired her even if she had been under investigation by the state’s law enforcement academy at the time.

Jessica Tyler was hired as the new head of training at the APD academy three days after she resigned from the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office amid an ongoing internal affairs investigation into her actions regarding a deputy reserve training program.

Multiple internal affairs reports obtained by KOB last week show that she violated several BCSO standard operating procedures when she failed to tell her superiors of the lack of funding for the program and when she failed to tell them she knew about the IA investigations into her actions.

Eden told the city council Wednesday that he knew Tyler was under investigation by BCSO internal affairs when he hired her. He also said that he contacted the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in June – a month before she resigned from BCSO and took the APD job – which told him there was “no active, pending or prior LEA 90s” for Tyler at that time.

But BCSO filed the LEA 90 – a disciplinary action proposal – after she had already left, so it would not have been filed in June anyway, as the internal affairs investigation was still ongoing. The NMLEA will now have to review the complaint and decide if Tyler should keep her law enforcement certification.

But Eden also told the council at Wednesday’s meeting that even if NMLEA had told him there was an active investigation into Tyler, it wouldn’t have prevented him from hiring her.

“Not at all. In my many meetings with Jessica Tyler, she made me fully aware that there was an active, ongoing internal affairs investigation by the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department,” Eden said. “When she told me what the investigation was about, how the investigation – she feels – was originated, I made a decision that that would not influence her ability to serve in this executive role at the academy.”

He conceded that had there been an active investigation by the NMLEA in June, the agency would not have been able to tell him about it – a point brought up by Councilor Dan Lewis.

And though most of the internal affairs investigation into Tyler appears to have been released to KOB last week, though vast portions were redacted, Eden told the council Wednesday they would soon find out more about the investigation that would ease their minds.

“I think…once you hear the facts of the internal affairs investigation that was initiated, it will become clear,” Eden told the council. “I understand that Ms. Tyler, through the attorneys that are representing her, they will be making statements this week.”

It is unclear exactly when Tyler’s attorneys plan to speak, but KOB will bring you their statements.

When KOB’s original story ran, we asked APD to answer multiple questions regarding her hiring, including whether she underwent a formal background check and if she is allowed to direct the training academy while under investigation by the NMLEA, but the police department failed to answer any specific questions.

Instead, it sent a statement from city CAO Rob Perry:

“Major Jessica Tyler is an intelligent, experienced, proven, and capable law enforcement leader and the City of Albuquerque and Police Department are fortunate to to [sic] have her. I have all the confidence that her skills will help with the challenges of training, DOJ agreement, and the recruiting and retention of high quality police officers for APD.”

This story was originally published at KOB.com