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(TNS) — Klarissa Peña recalls a time, before she sat on the Albuquerque City Council, when the district she lives in and now represents couldn’t get emergency services to respond.
“I remember a volunteer had cut his foot at the Alamosa Neighborhood Association. He was bleeding pretty profusely,” Peña said. “We called, and they said, ‘Well, this is city, this is county.’ I’m just like, ‘Well, this dude is bleeding out, somebody needs to come.'”
More than a decade later, her district has a new emergency response center at 98th and Amole Mesa SW, the first of its kind, housing the three divisions of Albuquerque emergency responders: Albuquerque Community Safety, the Albuquerque Police Department and Albuquerque Fire Rescue.
“We do respond to things differently now. We respond as a city,” Mayor Tim Keller said at the center’s opening Friday. “We have police, fire and community safety, representing the three branches that respond when you call 911, all under one roof, all able to work together, and all able to take care of the community.”
Called the Southwest Safety Center, it will serve one of the fastest-growing areas in the city as development continues west of the Rio Grande.
The center also marks the only fire station the city has built in the last 20 years and “will cut response times in half in many parts of this response district” and provide relief to neighboring stations, according to Lt. Jason Fejer, a spokesperson for Albuquerque Fire Rescue.
“This is the first new fire station that we’ve built since 2005. I was a cadet in 2005,” AFR Chief Emily Jaramillo said. “Now, in this position, 20 years later, we have our next fire station that’s opening up to account for all of the rapid growth that we’re seeing on the West Side.”
However, response times appear unlikely to be impacted for the other two departments.
“The location of a substation does not really factor into response times. Our officers start to calls from the field. Usually, when they clear one call at one location, they go straight to another call. They may start their shift at the substation,” Gilbert Gallegos, spokesperson for APD and the mayor’s office, said in an email. “But they also have field briefings to be visible in the community.”
Still, Police Chief Harold Medina reveled in the center’s opening and said he “couldn’t be happier” about where the center was built because of the three decades he spent climbing the department’s ranks while serving in the Southwest Area Command.
He also issued a message of support for his officers in the area.
“I ask you all, as citizens supporting those officers, stop letting everybody blame them for crime,” he said. “They arrest more people than the criminal justice system can process; it is not their fault.”
Albuquerque Community Safety, established in 2020, dispatches a social worker or other unarmed responder to situations where a police response isn’t deemed necessary. In the southwest corridor, “units are typically dispatched and on-scene in less than 20 minutes,” according to their spokesperson, Jorge Hernandez.
“The types of calls seen in the southwest are actually similar to those we see citywide,” Hernandez said. “In order of most common calls for service are: unsheltered individual, wellness check, welfare check, behavioral health, suicidal ideation.”
The center was constructed over roughly 18 months and cost nearly $24 million. It was funded by capital outlay contributions from city councilors, state legislators and the state, gross receipts tax money and general obligation bonds.
After the Friday ceremony, a call came across the radio of AFR staffers in attendance.
“Engine 23 is now officially in service for Albuquerque Fire Rescue,” it said. “Please join us in welcoming this new station and crew as they begin service to the city of Albuquerque.”
© 2025 the Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, N.M.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
