City of Las Cruces names Miguel Dominguez as new police chief

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico — The interim chief of the Las Cruces Police Department has been named to fill the post on a permanent basis, the city has announced.

Miguel Dominguez replaced former chief Patrick Gallagher, who announced his retirement back in July in the wake of an officer facing charges related to choking a suspect to death.

Dominguez has lived in Las Cruces since 1985 and graduated from the city’s police academy in 2003. He's served as a patrol officer, a field training officer and most recently had been the deputy chief of administrative support services.

Dominguez told ABC-7 in an interview Wednesday that he believes the department needs to better train its' officers and promised he would push for greater transparency and accountability.

"The police are the community and the community are the police," Dominguez said. "I didn't coin that phrase by any means, but we need to make sure that we emphasize that with our officers in our police department and I want our citizens to know that we honestly believe that that's how we're going to improve our relations throughout the community."

Dominguez was selected as the new chief from an initial group of eight candidates.