Another day, another ASUPD staffing concern!

Another decent ASUPD employee left the department today, which has been a routine occurrence in light of the ongoing staffing crisis transpiring at the department.

The Commander over the Tempe Campus, K. Williams left ASUPD today with only two days notice (presumably for greener pastures). Commander Williams was a seasoned 20 year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, and managed to survive ASUPD for only four years! This should speak volumes about the type of toxic work environment that exists throughout the department…even amongst members of Command staff!

Best of luck in your new ventures, Williams. We hope you go to a department that appreciates your experience and education.

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29 thoughts on “Another day, another ASUPD staffing concern!

  1. DL500unit says:

    There are some patterns I noticed over the years working at the ASU Police Department. Quality people (with prior experience=option to leave) don’t last long. Prior police experience from REAL police agencies, honor, integrity, a strong sense of right and wrong, are not appreciated at this agency. In fact they are frowned upon.

    When Williams first came to ASU from LAPD, then Assistant Chief Alan Clark pulled him into his office to threaten him and set the tone by telling him not to bring his LAPD ways to ASUPD. What exactly does that mean?

    The LAPD is an extremely large city police department that enjoys legendary status within the LE community for policing the most infamous gang infested areas of our nation. This is the agency Williams came from.

    Where did his ASUPD “superior” come from? The mean streets of Mill and University where he reputedly watched couples fornicate, 101’s urinate, and was found doing so by a Tempe PD bike cop? That sounds on par with chasing bloods and crips in the hood, shootings, stabbings, dealing with dealers and their junkies.

    ASU experience only supervisors (which are nearly all of them) feel threatened by “outsiders”. You escaped commander. We are guessing you were too highly ranked for the infamous ASU Police Internal Affairs Retention Program where nonsense IA’s hit your personel file like flapjacks at the Wafflehouse.

    Maybe the chief and command didn’t contact the agencies you applied to and blackball you (which is illegal but difficult to prove) the way they have done to so many ASU officers trying to better themselves. Hopefully you learned what not to do from your ASUPD counterparts and go run a positive police department with integrity, honor, and duty as the foundation.

    • ASUPDsmokeNmirrors says:

      I don’t know, he has been trying to leave for some time, so maybe they finally stopped shit talking him to other agencies and that’s why he was able to leave.

      He wasn’t in agreement with the other commanders on how the department was being run, he was also the only one to be from someplace other than ASUPD lol.

  2. indeedYOUsay says:

    The experiment is over. Chief JP hired a outside experienced leader who was educated, personable, and knew how to treat subordinates. Naturally that didn’t jive well at the Arizona State University Police Department, so he had to run away for the sake of his career and sanity.

    What do you bet they hand pick an inside guy to replace him? You can’t break the dunce cap chain.

  3. Supervisor Facepalm says:

    You have police officers from all ranks, commanders on down trying to get out of ASUPD due to the disasterous leadership model established by Chief John Pickens and followed by key people under his command. This should concern the university, but it clearly doesn’t.

    • ConcernedP says:

      Is the University aware of the issues with your police department and the related safety concerns for the community?

    • GetUpNoutwhileucan says:

      They (Michael Crow, Morgan Olsen, and Kevin Salcido) have been notified at least a few dozen times by multiple employees (current and previous) over the last few years. I’ve had correspondence with all three.

  4. Farewell says:

    Sad to see Commander Williams leave. The only one in command staff that ever put Sgt. Pam Osborne in her place.

    Commander Williams was the only one in the command staff that ever displayed any semblance of integrity, ethics, and compassion for his people.

    Kevin Salcido, we are really seeing robust and positive changes at the ASU PD, as you once stated in an email to all ASU PD personnel.

    I guess continuing to lose outstanding personnel is your definition of positive and robust changes?

    Wonder who will now be installed to fill the commander slot at Tempe? L. Fuchtman, D. Macias, J. Thompson? Back to square one, again!

  5. Quick call Tempe! says:

    It looks like background and experience left the building. He left the pool of yes men dum dums to sit around talking shit, to agree on everything and accomplish nothing. Let’s see one of those dipshits become a chief. Not going to happen.

    They can all share stories about fighting bicycle petty theft crime at ASU and rising up through the ranks as fast as toadstools from a turd. Maybe they can vote for one another in the awards banquet, exchange plaques, ribbons, while students are getting assaulted, robbed, because they collectively killed this department and drove away 100’s of ASUPD employees.

    While you’re at it give yourselves another raise, 100k is poverty line. You need to be like dum dum JP and make 160k for doing jack shit because you gave your work to someone else to do. If you can stop asking us to change our official police report crimes to lesser offences to avoid the Clery stat, that would be great.

    • ComeOnNow says:

      Sorry, what did he accomplish in his 4 years exactly?

    • getitright says:

      Well that’s a good question. I’ll take a shot at that. He survived four years of ASUPD without stroking out on the Koolaide, swallowing his gun or someone else’s, and left smiling because he can look forward to a new workplace even if it’s just another flavor of shit, at least it’s new shit. How’s that?

    • PaulBlart says:

      Comeonnow (Thompson):
      Williams has done as much in four years as you and the rest of command staff have done for their entire ASUPD careers…nothing!!

      He might have not accomplished much, but at least he had enough sense to realize ASUPD is a toxic hell hole (a point that is lost on all the rest of command).

      MT, you might have had a legitimate career and done real police work prior to ASU, but its disappointing you chose to ignore what you know is doing the right thing (weeding out problem employees, fixing the training situation, etc) in exchange for an Assistant Chief position.

    • WheresMy907 says:

      What has any commander currently there accomplished besides undermining the mission of the agency? They are completely unnecessary to the running of this agency. For that matter what has either assistant chief done? We know the chief is useless.

    • ComeOnNow says:

      You can’t have it both ways. You can’t throw all the other commanders under the bus for lack of accomplishments (“agree on everything and accomplish nothing”) but give KW a pass on 4 years of nothing because you happen to like him. It seems pretty disingenuous. As a matter of fact, where is the outrage over the lack of accountability for blatantly violating policy by routinely sleeping through meetings? Again, I’m pointing out how posters on this blog have selective outrage over things that happen, depending on who does it, yet complain about cliques. You have to be fair or you will be dismissed outright.

    • PaulBlart says:

      No one is giving Williams a pass. I merely said that he wasn’t drinking the ASUPD kool-aid like the rest of the command staff (ie, nothing is wrong! we have no staffing problems!!). At least he was a straight shooter.

      MT, you have the potential to be a good leader…but you need to get your head out of your ass and do what is the RIGHT THING, even if Chief doesn’t like it.

    • popo39machine says:

      Sleeping through meetings, at least someone got something out of them. Judging by who our commanders are, if they were all sleeping, that might improve things at this agency. Seriously, I’m not joking.

    • yurhuckleberry says:

      ComeOnNow, I don’t know what Commander Williams did during his four years here under our despotic Chief who listens to nobody and seems to know so little about being a leader.

      I do however know what the former commander didn’t do. How’s this?

      1. He didn’t come to ASU command from a city police department hot off a sexual scandal and have the audacity to teach us all his theory of ethics because he didn’t understand the fucking word. (A former ASU Police assistant chief.)

      2. He didn’t come to ASU command from a city police department hot off a sexual scandal where he was fucking his friend’s wife, a fellow officer, then convinced her to put a restraining order out on him to jam up his career while he marries her. He then joins his new agency to start an affair with a dispatcher, forcing her to lose her job, but carries on nonetheless chasing ass wherever it can be found. At least this AC doesn’t have the audacity to teach us all his theory of ethics because he still doesn’t understand the fucking word. (Yet another ASUPD assistant chief.)

      Based on these standards you’re right, what did he do to earn the right to command at ASUPD? The standards are so “high” he could never sink low enough to meet them.

      As a god fearing man who loves his wife and family he probably left happy with disgust behind him because he will possibly start working alongside people who don’t have the ethics of the criminals they put away. So you’re right, he hasn’t sunk low enough to command at the current Arizona State University Police Department, he still has a soul.

    • Justanotherdispensible50 says:

      He didn’t earn the reputation of being complete asshole to the troops. He didn’t earn the reputation as a predatory grab ass. His wife stayed with him instead of riding off on another man’s lap and his kids still talk with him, so he wasn’t an asshole to his family.

      Nobody else in ASSUPPD command can say all this.

    • Seguridad perdido says:

      At ComeOnNow,

      What did Commander Williams accomplish? He reputedly buried his boot in Sgt. Pam Osborn’s ass for disobeying repeated direct orders to not park personal vehicles on the north side of the Tempe station off Apache designated for marked patrol units.

      She makes over 70,000 a year for sitting in a cubicle trying to look busy and can’t afford a parking pass like everyone else there? Wrong. No integrity. Kevin tried to teach Pam ethics. If he was successful it would be a miracle. How’s that for an accomplishment? He attempted a miracle.

    • ComeOnNow says:

      So to recap, during the four year career of this seasoned LAPD veteran, the best accomplishments the contributors to this blog can come up with are a resolution of a parking dispute and a list of things he DIDN’T do. Yes, what a loss. In his absence, there will be anarchy in parking stalls university wide.

      I return to my original question. Why is it so terrible the rest of command staff accomplishes nothing, but perfectly okay that KW accomplishes nothing? Could it be because he is part of YOUR clique?

    • PaulBlart says:

      First of all, Williams has done nothing for me personally, so I have no reason to chime in on his behalf (nor is he a member of my “clique”).

      What myself and others have said is he wasn’t a complete fucking asshole who had no regard for others like the rest of command does. Even if the only thing Williams accomplished was putting a boot in Pam’s ass, thats more punishment then the rest of command has given her EVER.

      If you can’t read the other comments and figure out the answer to your question, then you truely are a a special person.

    • GetUpNoutwhileucan says:

      I’ll bite on this one.

      The rest of command seems to go out of their way to completely fuck over their subordinates, Williams didn’t do that; to my knowledge.

      At ASU, we have to be in a constant state of ready and worry. “What does today hold, what will that unbelievable prick try today”? I’m not that worried about being stabbed or shot to death, I’m worried about the bullshit IA that is going to be pulled because my boss is insecure and threatened by me.

      Well, you might say, the higher ups will see through that nonsense and you will be vindicated, as you are innocent. Nay, the administration above will allow the unrelenting torment to continue, because an intervention would be work on their part. Hardina is too stupid to realize what’s going on, Thompson is a “yes” man who will do anything to keep his job, and Pickens thinks he is god’s gift to law enforcement, he has six years of experience on the road; I’ll have you know.

      He couldn’t do anything under the despotic rule of Lord Pickens, but at least he let his people have a little peace of mind. They knew he wouldn’t try to screw their careers up for an ego boost. He’s not the tyrannical manager we are used to at ASU, the know-nothing who knows everything… according to them.

    • I was previously “on the fence” regarding some of our command staff…until recently. Before I get to that, let me say that I personally felt Cmdr. Williams was a stellar individual and it’s too bad he’s gone.

      AC Thompson, while maybe not solely responsible, handled the recent release of one of our OIT’s questionably, IMHO. I was told by a couple people that he was fired, and told by a couple others that he quit. Either way, it’s a glaring example of what isn’t working with here. It’s my understanding that he had “issues” with an FTO, who hadn’t been an FTO for a while, then was paired up with this OIT due to the shortage of FTO’s right now. I’m pretty sure we all know who I mean (I don’t want to drop his name on here, since I don’t know the whole story).

      Anyway, as I understand it, this OIT (a guy from out of state with a good amount of time on the job) asked to be paired with a different FTO after stating he felt there was enormous “friction” between himself and the FTO. The department’s response (from AC Thompson, as I understand it) was for the OIT to “deal with it”. Next thing I know, a few days later the OIT is gone…quit or fired, it doesn’t matter.

      So, the department’s response to a guy asking for help is to break it off in his ass? Everyone I’ve spoken to thought he was a good guy. It seemed to me that the guy was just trying to get his feet under him and make the best out of ASU that he could and just keep providing for his family. Admittedly, I don’t all the facts, but it seems odd that he apparently does well with a couple FTOs and then just falls apart out of nowhere after he’s paired up with a guy WHO IS KNOWN THROUGHOUT the department for fucking people over.

      Maybe we should step into the modern ages and actually consider that just maybe we should include “training” in our Field TRAINING Program. The complaint I regularly hear is that many FTO’s spend all their time bashing on and over-criticizing OITs instead of developing them into competent personnel. I know a small percent of OIT’s just don’t get it, but I’ve seen far too many thrown away to believe that all those people “weren’t working out” or whatever the excuses are. Not to mention the department flushes away untold sums of money with the revolving door.

      It just frustrates me to see another good guy get fucked around by the individuals from the same ol’ rat pack.

  6. getitright says:

    Well that’s a good question. I’ll take a shot at that. He survived four years of ASUPD without stroking out on the Koolaide, swallowing his gun or someone else’s, and left smiling because he can look forward to a new workplace even if it’s just another flavor of shit, at least it’s new shit. How’s that?

  7. WheresMy907 says:

    Nothing says “Can you see the bird John Pickens?” like 2 days notice. Almost nothing. The out of state lateral who got his AZ cert and quit in the chief’s office right after being sworn in, that guy is still the champ.

    • guerriero says:

      That was hilarious, hopefully the chief wasn’t able to hurt him. The guy just wants to be a cop, not deal with JP’s house of bullshit.

    • DL500unit says:

      INDEED

    • Justanotherdispensible50 says:

      Amen to that brother, he knew what the smell was and didn’t want any. He made the right choice for himself, for his family, for his career. It says volumes about the ethics of John Pickens when he made that phone call to his new department to sabotage that officer, volumes.

    • FlamingPileMallcoppery says:

      That guy was my hero. In record time he figured out what the work environment was, 7-1 supervisor to officer, the BS games, and decided to go be cop instead. Good for you!

  8. […] several posts where we discussed ASUPD’s alarming staffing numbers (check out a few here and here). The current staffing numbers were provided courtesy of ASUPD’s roster following shift bid. […]

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