We were pretty struck by the article on ASU’s homepage: What we achieved in 2013! Granted, some of the achievements regarding research were pretty stellar, but the majority of the article was peppered with “achievements” such as: being one of the “greenest” schools in the country, revamping the business school building, and having the Sun Devils in a bowl game.
Noticeably absent, of course, are topics such as Michael Crow receiving a pay raise while the rest of his employees receive a measly 3% pay raise (after a 5 year pay freeze!), or the decrease in proactive policing (due to staffing issues). Therefore, we’re creating a list of what ASU also achieved in 2013. This is, by no means, a conclusive list.
- Michael Crow received another pay raise.
- ASUPD’s police employees utilized a job posting site, indeed.com, to dissuade prospective employees from applying.
- Serious crimes on campus–sexual assault, robbery, burglary, drugs, and weapons crimes–all increased from the previous year.
- The media dubbed ASU “a hangover school” due to the increasing amount of alcohol-related violence.
- ASUPD plunged into a major staffing crisis, driven by a mass exodus from the department.
- Officers found themselves in increasingly volatile situations because staffing is so poor.
- The blog was created to provide a voice for ASUPD’s employees.
- Chief Pickens’ mishaps from his previous departments came to light.
- The cost of ASUPD’s failing FTO program became public knowledge.
All true. No matter how bad command wants to deny it, it’s true.
Maybe you could add, “ASU was kept safe by the hard work of surrounding agencies stepping in because we don’t have staffing and the university has no directive to maintain a functioning public safety department because it’s bad for stats.
We should be called ASU Never Ready PD. How would have the barricaded subject with a gun at WF been handled without Tempe? The drunken partying all year without Tempe and MCSO? What about the Tempe pd rescue of ASU PD at the WF ticket riot?
Without Mesa and Gilbert coming to the rescue the girl at Polytechnic and possibly others could be dead today because a crazy man threatening to shoot and kill his girlfriend had no obstruction, got away.
What about PHX PD coming to the rescue over and over for west campus ASU PD situations? There are other near misses throughout the year because ASUPD command can’t run a police department effectively.
Is the chief’s boss waiting for one of us to be killed before he notices a problem? Hopefully the chief can give more of a eulogy than reading straight from our personnel file. I say that because it’s been done before.