Excuse the colorful wording used in the title, but this is a major issue that hasn’t yet been broached on The Integrity Report. It’s one we’ve all had to deal with to some extent, and that is how secure our respective PD compounds are.
ASU’s Tempe campus has one of the most poorly-secured PD compounds around. First and foremost, there is absolutely NO secured parking for PD employees. How many of us have had our cars damaged, or had confrontations with people we had just arrested hours earlier? Almost all the major valley PD’s have some sort of secured parking for its employees (and we’re not even going to mention the COST to park in a place where your car gets messed with regularly!)
How secure is the INSIDE of a building when people who have NO business being there are allowed to roam freely? Prime example, former Assistant Chief Alan Clark. We understand he is still employee at the university in a different capacity, but why is he allowed unrestricted access to the PD? We’re sure not even Michael Crow himself could just waltz into the PD freely, so why is Clark allowed to? Additionally, Clark’s access to virtually every part of the PD poses a significant risk to the integrity of sensitive information. It is unheard of to let a former employee with a significant history of complaints against him potentially having access to IAs/complaints where he is listed as the perpetrator. The potential exists for him finish cleaning up some messes he may have left behind. (We are not suggesting this has happened, merely pointing out a hypothetical scenario).
What about the satellite campuses? They are in an even more critical situation than Tempe.
At Downtown Campus, It is not unusual to find transients sleeping/defecating around ASUPD’s “office” in the Post Office after hours, or even mentally ill transients trying to use the women’s restroom in the (old) basement of the post office. There’s no secured parking even for the PD vehicles, so they are easily susceptible to tampering by bad guys.
West Campus has a “temporary detention facility” that is completely unsafe. None of the cameras in the facility which monitor the area work, which means a prisoner must be physically observed by a secondary officer while the primary officer is completing paperwork. This opens up pandora’s box of safety/liability issues. Again, no secured parking for employees.
Polytechnic Campus has a building that is being eaten by termites, so needless to say, it would just take a strong kick and a bad guy could probably force his way into the building. No secured parking for employees here either.
Where is all the money the PD/university has budgeted to deal with physical infrastructure issues? The areas the students live in are nicer and more secure than what the university provides for its police department! Furthermore, the access the PD gives to non-employees needs to be address immediately to avoid a conflict of interest…or worse.
We haven’t had secure parking and aren’t about to get any anytime soon. It’s because our “criminals” are kids going to school, selling a dime bag now and then, that we haven’t been attacked without our sidearm, radio, or other weapons when we go back to our vehicles the same time day after day.
Some super smart people personalized their license plates telling everyone they’re cops, so they should be especially easy to find by the bad guys during gang initiation night. We can hand out Darwin awards afterwards.
Our station security at the satellite campuses is worse than a joke. It is the same old attitude for everything at ASUPD, nothing has happened yet, so why worry. It’s cheaper to pay the widow if she sues than actually address the problem. Instead lets have another awards for failure banquet for people doing nothing. I suppose this is a lie or mischaracterization too? People wonder why some past/present employees use colorful language on here? Enough of this will do it.
There is no doubt we should have secure compounds. You can be smart with what you have by not wearing your uniform to and from work. Also, keep your head on a swivel when you are coming to and from work. You just never know.
The bad guys don’t always wear uniforms or have vanity plates telling everyone what team they play for. If the majority of people here came from a full service agency that had real police activity they would understand this.