Everyday life at ASUPD has morphed from a job that somewhat resembled a watered-down version of law enforcement to a real life version of The Hunger Games; if one can survive the work day in the presence of low morale and arbitrary enforcement of policies/law without going insane or killing/harming themselves or another employee, they will be safe until the following days reaping. Those that don’t make it to the end of the workday are thrown to the wolves (metaphorically, of course) and become another HR statistic on a piece of paper in Kevin Salcido’s office.
In today’s edition of ASUPD’s Hunger Games, the two employees that didn’t survive the workday today were Assistant Chief James Hardina, and Chief John Pickens.
This afternoon, ASU CFO Morgan Olsen sent the following email out to all ASUPD employees:
The Assistant Chief (Thompson) over admin “ascends” to the position of acting Chief instead of the AC above patrol operations…odd. There is also no mention of Hardina vacating his position AT ALL in the above email; only after Hardina was seen packing up his desk and officially left the building was patrol notified about Hardina’s departure. We speculate that Hardina was forced out of his position by someone in the university, simply because Hardina doesn’t have another job waiting for him, nor is he remotely close to retirement.
The email also mentioned that Pickens will be vacating his position as Chief by this Friday, July 11th. This is a complete 180 from the email sent to all ASUPD employees barely a month ago, which stated that Pickens would remain in his position until his successor was hired. Pickens’ “leave” was probably forced upon him by the university who will most likely allow him to “retire” quietly, instead of rewarding his bad behavior with another cushy ASU job.
Someone at ASU finally wised up to the fact that the entire ASUPD Command staff was allowed to function relatively unchecked for decades. Command staff’s strategy of punishing those who speak out against them while allowing their “battle buddies” to do whatever they please FINALLY backfired; its hard to employ that tactic when your department is beyond critical staffing levels and the FBI/news media are sniffing around your dirty laundry.
Until the department has cleaned out “Chief” Thompson and all of his Command staff, we expect to see ASUPD’s Hunger Games played out on a daily basis.
Wow. MT sure wasted no time in updating his LinkedIn profile with his new job title:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-thompson/52/7a9/b70
How long before his job title is changed to “unemployed” like Pickens and Hardina?
The remaining command are all talking crap about former ASUPD chief Pickens because he now represents nothing more than a convenient scapegoat for what they themselves did or didn’t do.
They are laughing and making jokes as he loads his junk and fake awards for nothing on his little cart, but what they don’t understand is they aren’t out of the frier yet and they won’t be at any time as long as they remain.
Another member of exiting Team Hubris?
Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/, also hybris, from ancient Greek ὕβρις) in religious terms means extreme pride or self-confidence that leads to offense spoken or done towards the God(s), usually harshly punished after. This religious meaning is often transferred to denote overall highly unacceptable, arrogant and insulting behaviour that confronts ethical norms in a way that reminds one of the act described in Ancient Tragedies (like Oedipus).
Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer consequences from the wrongful act. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.
Ooh classy! The technical phrase for this is dickishly funny. In traditional ASUPD fashion the clash of egos takes precedent over admirable leadership qualities.
I think it’s equal parts hilarious and pretentious.
To be fair, if I had to work under or side by side those asses I would have done the same thing to give a professional “fuck you” to the deserving parties.
None of them have had any transparency or willingness to handle issues within the department.
Time and time again they have gone against adhering to any ethical standard. This hurts the agency because it has a ripple effect throughout the department.
A leader would understand no action takes place in a vacuum.
Wow that was fast, he made an overnight update to Linked In. It shows the contempt for Pickens even his own command had for him and nobody and I mean nobody liked Jimmy Hardena.
Nobody likes condescending assholes who owe their position to denigrating others and kissing the ass of their superiors. Unfortunately this was the leadership model adopted by the remaining command Pickens promoted up through the ranks at light speed.
Having said that acting commander Lou D seems like a good guy and is more qualified to be chief than any of them up there. Look at his resume.
With his experience and lack of connection to the clique here he could make an ideal assistant chief, chief candidate or at least a full time commander.
As a student, im quite pleased that change is finally happening.
Personally I don’t think this is justice though… I really hope that the F.B.I. or ASU will take the legal action needed against some of these officers who had more going on then attitude issues in the office.
That being said. Has anyone contacted the F.B.I. and pointed them in the direction of this blog and the specific police reports they need to see so they can hopefully clean up this mess?
I would venture to guess nobody has put their name out to contact the FBI regarding these matters.
Nobody in a law enforcement officer capacity wants to commit career suicide by putting their name out there in opposition to the agency they work for even when whistleblowing on corruption.
Power is not one sided. The fact that any police officer wont take the step of holding his agency accountable when he knows that their has been a crime committed is immoral and goes against the oath taken to protect the public. Whether officers like it or not they were given power over the people but because of that, are held to a higher standard. The ugly truth is that you are expected to uphold the integrity of your position as an officer.
If you really think that you can just hope and wait for the command staff to all leave, you’re really missing the point of what it means to be a civil servant.
Serving the public is a privilege, not a right.
To exploring delinquency,
Are you disappointed with the heads of our agency ASUPD, us on here, or both? It’s not a question of bravery, but a situation of fact. Wrong or Right, the second any one of us attaches a name to our protest we are done in this business.
As police officers we are traditionally not allowed by official policy and unofficial practice to have opinions unless we are retired or out of the business for good. The military is the same way.
We put a target on our chest every day for the public, but like anyone else we don’t want to lose our careers because we love what we do. This online protest is the end result of 14 years of collective pent up frustration and no positive change within the department for the entire time Pickens and his appointees were here.
I hope that the university can ask the FBI to investigate the situations mentioned before the public or news media does. They could save face with the public and us because whether they like it or not it’s coming.
Hey exploring delinquency, your career isn’t on the line here, so it’s easy to say what you’re saying.
Did you forget the people who took that oath and risk their lives every day for you are the one’s whistle blowing on the department? We are taking a calculated risk already.
If you feel so strongly about it then fill out the complaint in paper and put your name to it. It’s the least you could do since we are willing to take a bullet for your safety. This site was created for public awareness, not for us to hear ourselves talk. As the civilian public you are now aware. Thank you for taking an interest.
I’m glad to hear the feedback. I understand the frustration being experienced, but I cant deny the fact that I cant relate to being in your shoes.
Personally, I believe that the United States has been given one of the best governmental models the world has even seen, but for it to work, when situations arise where corruption and immorality thrives, it is up to the citizens and the other branches of government to keep those who have lost their way in check. Although there will always be risk, without the proper care, the risk to others exponentially grows due to the lack of courage of those who know whats actually going on.
That being said, I am also doing all I can as an informed citizen, because I don’t feel right standing by being aware of whats really going on with ASUPD.
My hope eventually is that accountability and responsibility will one day become the restored standard and the balance will be restored.
Keep the comments coming as I do read them.
Exploring Delinquency
Those who have any differing opinion or simply have asked the wrong questions have been retaliated against, so that’s why nobody I know of says a word. I’m assuming that’s why this blog was created months ago, to blow the lid off corrupt policing within this agency and how it affects the community. The most visible result has been no officers on patrol.
exploring delinquency,
communicate with the blog under contact us
firstamendmentftw@hushmail.com
about organizing an outside the PD active component to get these investigations under way. If you truly believe in what you’re saying others not connected to the agency could bring this full circle and get the department n the right track.
Exploring delinquency, the university’s leadership has been unbelievably dismissive toward employees who have brought allegations of misdeeds, corruption, maltreatment of employees, a failed FTO training program and a lack of sworn officers to adequately staff all four campuses.
With the recent high-profile case of ASU Professor Ersula Ore, the university’s leadership finally had no choice but to permanently remove ex-Chief John Pickens and ex-Chief James Hardina from their high paying positions as they were now an enormous liability to the university and the university’s leadership needed to do damage control as the incident with Professor Ore had gone viral and was now garnering local, national, and international attention.
One employee, who had brought concerns to the university’s leadership about how the ASU PD was operating and treating its employees, was told by the head of HR, Kevin Salcido, that if the employee did not like working for the ASU PD, maybe the employee would be happier working somewhere else. Those words, ironically, also were echoed to the same employee by the now ex-assistant chief, James Hardina.
The employee actually enjoys the job and never alluded to either Salcido or Hardina to the contrary; what the employee was not happy about was how many in the ASU PD leadership, and some in the mid-level leadership, often maliciously and viciously interacted with some of its employees or failed to properly manage taxpayer-funded resources.
The university only did superficial fixes to address the employee’s concerns but failed to fully tackle some of the most vexing and deeply rooted problems inside the ASU PD that was allowed to flourish during the Pickens’ era. And as of this writing, many of the same problems continue to plague the ASU PD.
Many currently in the command staff were willing accomplices during Pickens’ 14-year reign of incompetence and mismanagement. They did absolutely nothing diplomatically to challenge Pickens’ destructive methods of operation and mismanagement of precious resources.
In fact, many in the current command staff often implemented their own destructive methods of operation and maltreatment of many of their subordinates for their own vicious and wicked purposes. In their nefarious wake, they destroyed a lot of good and decent human beings who eventually left the ASU PD broken and demoralized.
That is why the majority of the employees in the ASU PD, and now outsiders, are calling for the entire removal of the command staff and some mid-level supervisors in the rank of sergeant and corporal.
The permanent removal of Pickens and Hardina is the first step in fixing the many problems within the ASU PD. However, it will take bold and decisive action by the new chief to completely revamp the top-heavy ASU PD command and mid-level structure.
In addition, it will require the new chief to rebuild the command with new and innovative leaders. This is vital if the ASU PD is to move forward in a positive and meaningful direction and in alignment with President Crow’s vision of the New American University.
We thank you and the many others that have reached out to the men and women of the Arizona State University Police Department in support of our cause to bring the ASU PD in compliance with the laws, statutes, and policies of the university, and to hold those that may have failed to abide by those laws, statutes, and policies fully accountable.
Current members of the command staff: Acting Chief Michael Thompson; Commanders: William Orr, Michele Rourke, Chris Speranza, and Lou Scichilone.
Paragraph two should read, ex-Assistant Chief James Hardina, NOT ex-Chief James Hardina. Sorry for the egregious typo!
We are going on four rookie officers leaving within 6 months as Morgan Olsen states, “We look forward to the completion of the current staff expansion initiative.” So do we Dr. Olsen because we haven’t had adequate staffing for years and years. As much as Salcido dismisses people leaving everyone is missed.
If you half-step concessions to change our leadership you will make no impact at all on retention. The same people blaming Pickens are equally responsible for his devastating failures.
New officers are graduating the academy, being rushed through training, and hit the streets with pending job offers at other agencies. We are going on four rookie officers leaving within 6 months. Why?!?
They see the writing on the wall and the workplace under our leadership make the decision all too easy. Right now ASU command will say anything to take the blame off themselves and blame departures on higher pay, opportunity, etc. To that I say Ok, let’s keep doing the same thing expecting different results.
I am one of those rookies. In my whole life I have never see so much inconsistency and expected to learn from that immediately. I was trained by many who didn’t do it well… I wonder if Thompson told each officer who walked in his office if he said ” I have bad news for you” and ” I know this is a lot to take when you thought you were doing good”
Now Thompson needs to go! I would love to tell him I got bad news for you bro!
Darthpickens:Thompson will be thrown out with the rest of the trash, just give it time. No way he could feign ignorance about the departments problems…There’s too much blood on his hands!
Darth Pickens,
The question on everyone’s mind now is will Thompson attempt to right past issues that remain, root out corruption protected in the past, or merely make minor adjustments to the Pickens Phallic Code?
When you were in FTO, along with a number of others, there was a significant amount of no training and manic evaluation with variable standards. Some of the FTO’s were being coached by Sgt Pam Osborne on how to push trainees out of the department who didn’t fit in with her posse. Many FTO’s were not even trained instructors and one’s that were had very little experience with no supervision.
These rookie FTO’s with relatively few years as an officer and only at a university were failing veteran city cops who came to the police department. What a fucking joke! It took how long for this problem to get attention?
These corrupted FTO’s were still in the program when Sgt Larry Fuchtman took over the program and allowed this to continue. The no training and manic evaluation continued. This is when you entered the program and we continued losing officer after officer after officer. The one’s that made the right social connections passed and soon lateraled to other police departments. This went on for months and continues today.
And they wonder why very few of us want to be FTO’s? More heads do need to roll. The ones who made this all possible. Maybe then their replacements will have the motivation to do their jobs and do right by people.
Sorry Darth Pickens, this number (4) is the few officers who made it off training AND found a home with another police agency within 6 months.
The number of experienced lateral officers and new officers out of the academy who didn’t make it is much higher. The tax payers of AZ, through ASUPD, spent 100’s of thousands for Sergeant Pamela Osborne and everyone above her in the chain of command to waste mismanaging our training program for years.
This chain of command includes the now acting chief of police Mike Thompson. Under this mismanagement we had higher failure rate than the elite US Navy Seals and no questions were asked or action taken?
When you consider the numbers of lost officers in training it’s unthinkable. They were told about the problems of the Pickens command months ago and it took this long to happen. What will have to happen for them to see the rest of the commanders for what they are?
The remaining command will say anything to save their necks and were already blaming Pickens for things they did before he left the building! Commander Michelle Rourke was the first to start blaming Pickens for her behavior. When you are asked to do something immoral, unethical, or illegal it’s up to you to say no. Who’s going to be next excuse maker trying to save themselves at Pickens’s expense?
At first I read this and thought, whoa there, we lost a lot more than 4, but you specified rookie and lateralling out so that’s right. When you know how bad the bullshit politics have been here why would any new guy stay and how could you reasonably hope to retain your veterans? We lost a lot of good people.
The old chief’s answer to losing people was to keep hiring and hiring and hiring and training and losing more people who know what’s going on here. He never once thought that his hand picked dumb dumbs could be setting him up for failure and doing it for their own selfish reasons. I guess being an out of touch leader finally caught up to him. Too bad no ideal replacements are anywhere to be found.
Darth Pickens, If we included everyone who was pushed out of here or quit out right over the last few years the number would significantly higher into the double digits.
I wish I could have seen their faces as they walked out the door with their box of personal items. With the heavy weighted doors of the department it just might have hit them in the ass on the way out. Thank you for making this possible. You made a lot of department employees very happy.
I would have paid $100.00 on the spot cash for that view.
I wonder if it finally dawned on them that they should have conducted themselves any different? I doubt it, probably blaming everyone but themselves like a mad dictator in their bunker.
I hope that door smacked the shit out of them and if it did we should award it something. Based on their working knowledge of ARS one of the remaining commanders would order us to charge it with agg assault, but that’s ok. The county attorney can just pitch it like another trumped up mess.
May 26 2014: Breaking down ASUPD’s morale problem, piece by piece!
“The removal of the entire command staff will begin the process of fixing the countless problems in the ASU PD.
We would suggest that the university’s leadership, sans [Kevin] Salcido, start planning for the eventual removal of the entire command staff if the university is serious about moving the ASU PD in a new direction and bringing our nightmarish era to an end.” ThySummons
Julie Newberg might have to start telling the truth now that Chief Pickens’s departure time was accelerated to warp speed and well ahead of schedule! Her job is starting to look like any one of the departed press secretaries under the president.
What’s so bad about just telling the truth anyway? Isn’t it less embarrassing than appearing like a band of liars desperately trying to prop up a house of cards? The truth will come out eventually. Be on top of it, ahead of it by reporting it first or be on the bottom of it by denying it because everyone else knows better. It’s your choice!
Pickens got the boot early because the house of cards needs another coat of paint before the new school year. They simply couldn’t afford more failure and if they promote more of the problem kids to command the failure will only continue.
Even now the pressure is mounting as more and more eyes focus on the den of iniquity that was set up and disguised as a police department. Minus the acting commander and former Chief of Superior AZ Police the commanders need to go.
Like Pickens and Hardina they need to be given a box to get their shit and get the fuck out. They are unwanted and undeserving of the troops.
Think about how absurd the press release was.
They tried to keep the resign in lieu of terminations secret by separating one from another.
Pickens has more time on a contract, so why pay him to sit at home, make up a title and stuff him somewhere he can’t do any more harm. The man is still looking for the floppy drive on his computer, but he will lead a technology job?
You released the Hardena expulsion before they did! And we are supposed to think Pickens and Hardena willfully left the AZ public safety retirement system before their time?
We are supposed to believe they left their collective quarter million on the table? Hardena left it to go compete in sports at his age? You can do that employed.
As annoying it is to be lied to its amusing to see what they will come up with and say next. I’ll prepare my popcorn now that I know what to expect. Yummy.
Hopefully Julie and us will get some quality people to work with! People she doesn’t have to collaborate with to put a spin together for.
A weak spin like the one for Hardina where he is going to compete in sports all year in lieu of getting a job to replace the 100K he just lost and the retirement he is short of? That doesn’t make any sense.
Exploring delinquency: thanks for caring enough about what’s happening in your community to comment. It’s frustrating sometimes because the student populous doesn’t appear to care about what’s happening around them and how they can help change it for the better.
That’s only two problems gone. What about the rest of the problematic command? Promoting from the personnel within is a no win situation. You have to pull from outside talent, not people who learned all their dirty tricks under John Pickens. They simply can’t help doing what they have done for years and nothing will change.
The have underestimated the problem if they think they will get anything of value from the remaining command staff.
They were taught leadership through despair instead of inspiration. When you have an army of supervisors over a few people they are going to look for things to do from an office and justify their jobs. Wondering why such a small department has so many internal generated Internal Affairs?
Instead of assisting patrol some supervisors chose to work solely from their desk or from home. Pam Osborne spent her whole career judging others on a job she didn’t do and doing it from an office.
Michelle Rourke,now a commander, was cut from the same cloth.
Both practiced hyper-documentation over the slightest of non-issues with employees, naturally dropping morale for everyone around them, and staff couldn’t leave the department fast enough.
There is all kind of chatter about who will get promoted to what, whether or not it should be acting or permanent.
Here’s a brilliant question! Why do anyone of these people need to be promoted in order to reorganize this department?
They can’t do the job at their current rank? If it’s a permanent promotion from within all you have done is given this blog more content for future articles. Chief Pickens was a turd floating in this bowel for some time. These fire sale promotions will only stir the dirty water around. Only a real leader can spot leadership talent and mentor it, that wasn’t our chief, he went with what he knew and headed backwards.
Cleanse this house of ill repute by getting new blood in there for the permanent positions. Make these people earn the money the tax payers are already giving them.
I’m inclined to agree with you. Why do we need two assistant chiefs and five commanders or 17 sergeants?
The biggest problem with the Pickens’s tenure was the enormous supervisor pool for the few officers we have. This is where the over supervised felt like this wasn’t a place where they wanted to work.
We lost two useless command components, there’s no need to refill the fat command we didn’t need in the first place. Delegate that work to your pool of 17 sergeants!
Maybe they want the pay bump and linked in resume updates. Their last priority should be resume stunts, but look at the record.
When the police department you just got the boot from is full of people laughing and celibrating your untimely separation that speaks volumes. By untimely separation I mean short of retirement. Both the chief and assistant chief are short of their retirements, proving beyond a doubt it was hardly a choice to leave.
Note: This is a double post.
Exploring delinquency, the university’s leadership has been unbelievably dismissive toward employees who have brought allegations of misdeeds, corruption, maltreatment of employees, a failed FTO training program and a lack of sworn officers to adequately staff all four campuses.
With the recent high-profile case of ASU Professor Ersula Ore, the university’s leadership finally had no choice but to permanently remove ex-Chief John Pickens and ex-Chief James Hardina from their high paying positions as they were now an enormous liability to the university and the university’s leadership needed to do damage control as the incident with Professor Ore had gone viral and was now garnering local, national, and international attention.
One employee, who had brought concerns to the university’s leadership about how the ASU PD was operating and treating its employees, was told by the head of HR, Kevin Salcido, that if the employee did not like working for the ASU PD, maybe the employee would be happier working somewhere else. Those words, ironically, also were echoed to the same employee by the now ex-assistant chief, James Hardina.
The employee actually enjoys the job and never alluded to either Salcido or Hardina to the contrary; what the employee was not happy about was how many in the ASU PD leadership, and some in the mid-level leadership, often maliciously and viciously interact with some of its employees or fail to properly manage taxpayer-funded resources.
The university only did superficial fixes to address the employee’s concerns but failed to fully tackle some of the most vexing and deeply rooted problems inside the ASU PD that was allowed to flourish during the Pickens’ era. And as of this writing, many of the same problems continue to plague the ASU PD.
Many currently in the command staff were willing accomplices during Pickens’ 14-year reign of incompetence and mismanagement. They did absolutely nothing diplomatically to challenge Pickens’ destructive methods of operation and mismanagement of precious resources.
In fact, many in the current command staff often implemented their own destructive methods of operation and maltreatment of many of their subordinates for their own vicious and wicked purposes. In their nefarious wake, they destroyed a lot of good and decent human beings who eventually left the ASU PD broken and demoralized.
That is why the majority of the employees in the ASU PD, and now outsiders, are calling for the entire removal of the command staff and some mid-level supervisors in the rank of sergeant and corporal.
The permanent removal of Pickens and Hardina is the first step in fixing the many problems within the ASU PD. However, it will take bold and decisive action by the new chief to completely revamp the top-heavy ASU PD command and mid-level structure.
In addition, it will require the new chief to rebuild the command with new and innovative leaders. This is vital if the ASU PD is to move forward in a positive and meaningful direction and in alignment with President Crow’s vision of the New American University.
We thank you and the many others that have reached out to the men and women of the Arizona State University Police Department in support of our cause to bring the ASU PD in compliance with the laws, statutes, and policies of the university, and to hold those that may have failed to abide by those laws, statutes, and policies fully accountable.
Current members of the command staff: Acting Chief Michael Thompson; Commanders: William Orr, Michele Rourke, Chris Speranza, and Lou Scichilone.
Paragraph two should read, ex-Assistant Chief James Hardina, NOT ex-Chief Hardina. Sorry for the egregious typo!
All the remaining assholes need to be replaced otherwise this ship is dead in the water. Has anyone heard the bullshit stories they are spinning to try and save their jobs? Don’t believe them for a minute.
BurningheapofFail, what exactly are some of the remnants of the Pickens’ era spinning to save their jobs?
Anyone with integrity and ethics would never believe what acting Chief Michael Thompson, Commanders, William Orr, Michele Rourke, Chris Speranza, and Lou Scichilone, would have to say after their protector, John Pickens, was fired along with his sidekick, James Hardina.
I couldn’t agree more, the new chief needs to clean house!
We have worked hard to rid the ASUPD of two of the most despicable individuals. This was a collaborative effort by many within the ASUPD.
We also thank the university’s leadership for finally doing the right thing by removing Pickens and Hardina from the ASUPD.
We can only hope that in the following days, weeks, and months that the remaining command staff will be removed and replaced by more qualified and people-oriented leaders.
Entirely true. This shit is far from over.
You don’t just take the top layer of garbage out to the curb, so why just the top two failures of leadership. They clearly don’t understand the problem and I don’t think the blog is going anywhere based on who they decided to keep on board.
[…] Thursday, we were the first to report that Chief John Pickens and Assistant Chief Jim Hardina were abruptly removed from their positions […]
Pickens needed to be gone a long time ago and Hardina was a drain on the agency. He really didn’t know what he was doing, most likely he promoted too fast and beyond his abilities.
If ASU wants to avoid a repeat of the Pickens debacle it wouldn’t promote anyone from within higher than Sgt. They should hold leadership positions for people with considerable outside experience and you can’t have what it takes coming up through the ranks of ASUPD.
[…] another scandal is rocking ASUPD, fresh on the heels of the Pickens/Hardina PR debacle; however this time, it involves a civilian […]
John Pickens and James Hardina were allegedly fired over the Ore incident. However, they were fired for more than just the Ore fiasco. The Ore incident was merely the last straw that finally forced the university’s leadership to can Pickens and Hardina.
Before the Ore incident, the university’s leadership was extremely reluctant to jettison Pickens and Hardina for their mismanagement of resources and other shenanigans over the years.
The pipes were snaked and the toilet flushed. Thank god for this joyous miracle. It was about time.