Mayor Tim Keller says every officer counts when it comes to fighting crime.

"For every officer we're able to bring in, we're able to put another officer – a more experienced officer – into a detective area,” said Keller. “For example, crimes against children or domestic violence and that's how we're really shoring up the violent crime area."

As of March 30, APD has 927 officers – up from 821 officers three years ago.

While crime rose every year between 2014 and 2017, property crime dropped 17% between 2017 and 2018. Violent crime is down by 1%.

KOB 4 asked Keller what's behind the change.

"I think it's a lot of us working together from state police, to the criminal justice system, to the DA's office, obviously our department, but fundamentally at the end of the day the leading edge of any fighting crime effort is the police officers in Albuquerque," said Keller.

Despite crime rates dropping, Keller says the city still faces several challenges, like being short 300 officers.

"But most importantly we have a long way to go on community policing," said Keller.