Just when the Crow administration and the command over at the ASU Police department thought they had an unbeatable ace in the hole, whoops! We at the Integrity Report and our contributors would like to thank Reverend Jarrett Maupin for taking a serious look at the Officer Ferrin and Professor Ore incident and coming to a conclusion based on all the facts in this case. The command of ASUPD has assured their bosses at the Fulton Center that they would be able to terminate Officer Ferrin on what they have managed to populate his personnel file with. A file of old concluded business does not hide their true intent to terminate this officer. The command of ASUPD, based on the record of truth, can’t be trusted to run a police department any different than the preceding chief John L. Pickens. The employees familiar with JP wouldn’t trust him run a lemonade stand based on his ethical stance which is more home in Chicago IL or New Orleans LA than Tempe AZ. The fight continues and will continue until change is realized, until the ASUPD starts to run as a police department based on the standards of AZPOST, and until it is ran by respectable sworn law enforcement officers who earn respect from their peers. While we love the university and the people we serve, we are extremely displeased with how the university leadership of the Crow Administration have conducted themselves with this case. This case is one small part of a bigger picture involving years of poor leadership and mismanagement at the Arizona State University Police Department. Our indictment of the university leadership is a direct consequence of their refusal to take any affirmative action in fixing the issues at the Arizona State University Police Department. Positive change will have a dramatic change for employees, but it will also have a profound and positive change for those we serve and the quality of service they receive.
The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, other activists sat down for a ‘lemonade summit’
with ASU Officer Stewart Ferrin.
The same civil-rights activists who threatened two weeks ago to march on Arizona State University if a White campus police officer was reinstated after arresting a Black professor, switched course Tuesday and mended their differences at a “lemonade summit.”
Now they want Officer Stewart Ferrin reinstated.
The Rev. Jarrett Maupin of Phoenix and a half-dozen community activists met with Ferrin, who is facing termination after his controversial arrest last year of an ASU assistant English professor.
Maupin also had a private dinner this week with Ferrin and his attorney, Mel McDonald, where the activist said he got to know the 25-year-old officer.
“It would be very sad to put (the family) in any economic harm’s way,” Maupin said. “So we will be calling (today) for the university to place him back on active status.”
PREVIOUSLY: ASU police officer’s leave extended; wife gives birth
RELATED: Arrested ASU professor files $2M claim
Maupin invited African-American women to meet and talk with Ferrin at the meeting at Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles, a landmark Phoenix restaurant.
The activist dubbed the meeting a “lemonade summit” — a nod to when President Barack Obama sat down for a beer summit in 2009 with a Harvard professor and a police sergeant whose controversial arrest of the professor became a national story. Obama initially responded to the arrest by saying police behaved “stupidly.” The president later sought to clear the air by inviting the men for a beer.
This time, the participants shared lemonade because Ferrin doesn’t drink alcohol.
Renee Huff, a Phoenix community advocate who attended, said the officer and the professor he arrested, Ersula Ore, should be able to return to their lives.
“People make mistakes,” she said. “By God, we need to be able to forgive people.”
Ore’s attorney, Danny Ortega Jr., declined to comment about the meeting. Maupin said he did not invite Ore to the summit. ASU officials also declined to comment.
The officer has been on leave since July after he arrested Ore. Ore filed a $2 million legal claim last year against Ferrin and ASU, accusing the officer of excessive force, false arrest and violation of her federal rights to due process.
Ferrin received notice in early January that ASU intends to terminate him, and he has appealed the decision. It’s not clear how soon ASU Police Chief Michael Thompson will make a decision.
Ferrin and his attorney have declined to say what reasons ASU is giving for seeking to fire him. ASU has declined to release the officer’s personnel file. The school cited a state law that prohibits employers from releasing investigative files for law-enforcement officers facing discipline until appeals are concluded.
Ferrin and his attorney could release the information but have declined. Ferrin said he believes the information will be released at some point. But for now, they say they want to maintain the integrity of the process. Ferrin added he has nothing to hide and “there’s nothing embarrassing” in the information.
Ferrin expected a decision about his job last week, but ASU extended his leave, pending a decision by the chief. The next day, Ferrin’s wife gave birth to the couple’s second child.
The May 20 arrest drew national attention after a video of the arrest went viral. Civil-rights activists claimed Ore was targeted for her race.
A dashboard-camera video of the arrest shows Ferrin repeatedly telling Ore to put her hands behind her back. When she refuses, he tells her he will “slam” her on the police car, according to the video. Footage shows the officer tackling her to the ground. A police report says she kicked the officer in the shin.
The police report says the 33-year-old Ore argued with Ferrin after he stopped her for walking in the middle of the street and told her to get on the sidewalk. She refused repeated requests to show identification, the report says.
She told police later she felt like the officer “bullied her” and belabored his point that she shouldn’t be walking in the street. Ore was arrested on charges of aggravated assault on an officer, criminal damage, refusal to provide a truthful name and obstructing a public thoroughfare. She pleaded guilty to one count of resisting arrest and received probation; the other charges were dropped.
McDonald, Ferrin’s attorney, said Maupin initiated this week’s meeting. “Last Friday, I get a call at my office and they said, ‘It’s Reverend Maupin on the phone.’ I said, ‘Someone’s playing a joke,'” McDonald said. “I took the phone and it was Reverend Maupin. … I was very touched by some of the things he had to say.”
Maupin two weeks ago called for Ferrin’s firing. He threatened to march on the campus of the university “and the office of ASU President Michael Crow” if ASU didn’t follow through and fire Ferrin. Maupin said he changed his mind after meeting the officer. “I got to know him as an individual. He was in a very tense and tough situation. I don’t wish that situation on anybody.”
Ferrin said he was grateful to meet with Maupin and tell his side of the story.
Thank you Reverend Jarrett Maupin for doing the right thing by asking for Officer Stewart Ferrin to be reinstated based on the facts.
Good job President Michael Crow and Chief Michael Thompson for making yourselves look like a horse’s patoot on the world stage.
The university knows it’s police department suffers from incompetent leadership. I’m sure they are feeling the pressure.
The liabilities are now off the charts and critical with so many young, poorly trained, and inexperienced go- getter officers filling up the department.
We need sergeants who have prior experience at police departments that tested their ability to do this job because policing isn’t getting easier and doing things the old way doesn’t measure up.
These officers are being mentored by the people who have a weak knowledge police procedure, civil rights, search and seizure, and are used to making up charges after the arrest because nobody is looking or rarely fights it in court. People are looking now and it’s still business as usual.
The university administration probably isn’t aware of the latest near miss disaster.
Tuesday night two asu officers on Tempe nights find a 311, indecent exposure aka people having sex. Two girls are having sex in a car, the occupants attempt to leave and hit the bike tire of one of the officers.
With no apparent victim to the indecent exposure, no injuries to the officers, a pursuit is called out. Acting Sgt Janda and Corporal Khalid (both in the current Sergeant process) let it go, don’t terminate, a serious violation of policy due to the likelihood of injury and liability.
The pursuit takes place from the Tempe campus to the Tempe city streets where there’s an accident between one of the pursuit vehicles and the Smart car involved.
One of the pursuit officers thought it would be wise to block the front of the fleeing vehicle and initiate a high risk felony stop.
The ASUPD supervisors try to get Tempe PD to take the accident, but they declined after realizing how much of a cluster this was. After the booking at 4th ave Corporal Khalid returns with the “strap on” he missed doing a search. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a gun. Searching is police basics 101.
While other PD’s handle dangerous felony calls every day and night, ASUPD nearly killed someone responding to a self-initiated “fucking & fleeing” felony stop/pursuit.
Michael Crow, this is bad, not good. If something isn’t done to fix our failed leadership and training program I fear the near misses will hit because luck runs out. When it does nobody will remember the Ferrin/Ore contact, that will be eclipsed.
Wow, this is bad! And to think that these two individuals, Janda and Khalid, are vying for a full-time sergeant position in the department–that’s frightening!
Reverend Maupin just proved he’s more of a leader than anyone at the university!!! He wants to bring communities together, not tear them apart.
Crow needs to hold the management of ASU and ASUPD responsible for the mess the university is in on this issue and reward continual failure with what it deserves.
They backed the wrong horse again and have egg on their face. Pickens had his head where it usually was and let his command fumble the ball he couldn’t catch.
He passed back the hot potato to Thompson and the fumbling continued because nobody knows what they he’ll they are doing, they’re only good at pretending to.
This is great news! I can appreciate a man who, despite their title and position, can admit their mistakes.
The bottom line is we shouldn’t accuse someone of being a racist until we know them and know it’s true.
Reverend Maupin may never be an ASUPD commader if he continues to make informed decisions about treating our fellow human beings with respect regardless of association.
I know it’s damn near impossible for them, but it’s time for the Crow and his people to admit they made a mistake. They retained the experienced racist and fired the inexperienced cop.
Against better judgement they retained John Pickens’s old command, how’s that working out for them?
The university knows it’s police department suffers from incompetent leadership. I’m sure they are feeling the pressure.
The liabilities are now off the charts and critical with so many young, poorly trained, and inexperienced go- getter officers filling up the department.
We need sergeants who have prior experience at police departments that tested their ability to do this job because policing isn’t getting easier and doing things the old way doesn’t measure up.
These officers are being mentored by the people who have a weak knowledge police procedure, civil rights, search and seizure, and are used to making up charges after the arrest because nobody is looking or rarely fights it in court. People are looking now and it’s still business as usual.
The university administration probably isn’t aware of the latest near miss disaster.
Tuesday night two asu officers on Tempe nights find a 311, indecent exposure aka people having sex. Two girls are having sex in a car, the occupants attempt to leave and hit the bike tire of one of the officers.
With no apparent victim to the indecent exposure, no injuries to the officers, a pursuit is called out. Acting Sgt Janda and Corporal Khalid (both in the current Sergeant process) let it go, don’t terminate, a serious violation of policy due to the likelihood of injury and liability.
The pursuit takes place from the Tempe campus to the Tempe city streets where there’s an accident between one of the pursuit vehicles and the Smart car involved.
One of the pursuit officers thought it would be wise to block the front of the fleeing vehicle and initiate a high risk felony stop.
The ASUPD supervisors try to get Tempe PD to take the accident, but they declined after realizing how much of a cluster this was. After the booking at 4th ave Corporal Khalid returns with the “strap on” he missed doing a search. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a gun. Searching is police basics 101.
While other PD’s handle dangerous felony calls every day and night, ASUPD nearly killed someone responding to a self-initiated “fucking & fleeing” felony stop/pursuit.
Michael Crow, this is bad, not good. If something isn’t done to fix our failed leadership and training program I fear the near misses will hit because luck runs out. When it does nobody will remember the Ferrin/Ore contact, that will be eclipsed.
What Ferrin was accused of as an individual officer they did as a squad. You have the night shift over reacting to a call most often handled with a warning. At ASU it’s release the SWAT team.
The difference? Race wasn’t a factor and no college professor, but still a petty offense to nobody except two officers who happened across them. Good luck finding a CA who will prosecute on this.
A college student doesn’t need a criminal record after trying to sneak some sex in where they were alone except for two people patrolling together on bicycles late at night. They were lucky nobody got hurt over another case the CA will laugh out of court as more ASU bad policing not worth their time.
As a police officer of considerable experience elsewhere it astounds me how police work is done at ASU.
The night squad wants to play varsity for Tempe PD in the worst way and based on what I’ve seen so far it’s going to be very embarrassing for the university.
If you want to be a street cop then go be one, instead you have people who couldn’t make it as one acting out their fantasies here on people who don’t warrant that kind of attention.
When you drive like an idiot and accidentally run over a student or crash into someone’s car causing a serious injury or death how do you explain it was over two girls test driving a dildo in an empty parking structure at a university? There’s no satisfactory explanation for it.
Wow, this is bad! And to think that these two individuals, Janda and Khalid, are vying for sergeant in the department–that’s frightening!
What do you expect? The full blown retard night shift response to a bike theft in progress and so many other calls is to speed to the scene through traffic or the malls of campus with pedestrians at code 3 speed without lights and sirens on.
When you are conditioned to respond to non-emergency calls in an emergency fashion the chance for things to get out of control increases. None of the night shift supervisors in Tempe have seen this as a problem for years now and it continues. This squad does more activity off campus than on campus. Constant traffic stops, subject stops nowhere near campus.
Unless one of the arrestees is a professor, minority with a voice, or has some other connection you will never hear about this again. I just hope Luke was paying attention when county showed him propper search techniques. Strap on…lmao.
It looks to me like this conversation has gone off course. Is this about Civil Rights activists supporting Officer Ferrin or blasting a particular squad over a recent incident?
Focus people, focus….
This has been going on too long, somebody is going to get hurt or killed from overzealous policing and incompetent supervision. Add an additional zero to the lawsuit payout for every unheeded warning the university had.
While other departments are dealing with police work our police war story is with two lesbians in a parking structure armed with a strap on dildo in a Smart car that led to a pursuit, car accident, felony stop, and a missed search with Khalid not finding a strap on dildo until MCSO pointed it out.
Seriously…even though some of us weren’t there and details might be missed this is raising some questions.
1. Are we in the business of creating emergency situations or responding to them?
2. How were the occupants of the vehicle contacted?
3. Were the department issued body cameras being used?
4. Was the contact being recorded by tape recorder as required by policy?
5. Were there announcements of “POLICE!” or did the occupants get spooked thinking they were about to become victims of a crime and needed to flee?
6. Where was the victim for indecent exposure, did you have to go track one down?
7. Was it really aggravated assault against an officer or contempt of one because they bumped into Jone’s bicycle tire?
8. Were there injuries? Were they documented and photographed?
9. This obviously was a pursuit; did it meet the qualifications of a pursuit by ASUPD policy?
10. Since it was a pursuit was it called out?
11. How many units were responding code 3?
12. How many units were driving at high speed, but without lights and sirens?
13. Why wasn’t the pursuit called off by one of two supervisors?
14. What were the two supervisors doing at the time of this call? Was acting sergeant Janda screwing around in the armory, was Khalid sitting in 103 watching Netflix?
15. What led to the collision?
16. Why was Tempe PD asked to do it? Why do you think they refused?
17. Why did one of the officers block the vehicle with the front of his vehicle and initiate a high risk felony stop? If the driver attempted to reverse and drive away would someone have shot them?
18. When it was determined one of the girls was under age and taken there by an adult, how was that handled?
The questions can go on and one, hopefully Thompson’s command can be honest with the university administration about the state of affairs. Hopefully the reports are truthful and accurate. This is a call that could have easily been much worse given the heavy response.
Can anyone say lack of adequate training and supervision? Experienced and properly trained officers don’t find a 311 contact and push the envelope turning it into an 11:00 news story followed by feature articles asking “What is going on at ASUPD?!”
Maybe commanders need to start working patrol and taking calls, especially on nights, instead of being on days in circle jerk meetings all day accomplishing nothing.
They will armchair quarterback everything about the Sunday night game on Monday morning when they could have influenced the decisions on Sunday night when they happen.
I wasn’t there, but if half the things I heard are true there’s a lot of questions that need answered. Supervisor Facepalm covered many of them. It sounds like plenty of policy was thrown out the window, bad police procedure, fabricated charges, and false arrest.
I heard something in the Ferrin defense alleging inadequate training. These are some of the same people who trained him and this is the squad he went to on nights for his year of probation and beyond.
If anyone has contact with the media this is a story to examine. It has all the usual suspect problems, poor training, supervison, and leadership. The problem goes all the way up the chain and illustrates the public safety pitfall ASUPD is experiencing.
This complete call was a fabricated mess that will be exposed for what it is publicly if the department leadership doesn’t conduct itself ethically and start holding people responsible for lying whether that lying is done by embellishing, ommission, or reconstruction after the fact to justify actions taken.
Do you want another public university police scandal because you refuse to hold people to a higher standard? I’m sick of scum that don’t deserve the honor of wearing the badge dishonoring the profession. Integrity matters and the lesson needs to be taught again.
Thanks again Reverend Jarrett Maupin for doing the right thing by asking for Officer Stewart Ferrin to be reinstated based on the facts.
The police department is slowly unraveling from the seams because it does not have sound and decisive leadership.
Pickens set in motion years ago what is now occurring in the police department by installing some of the most unqualified and incompetent individuals in key leadership and supervisory positions.
Chief Thompson thus far is continuing the Pickens-era trend by not removing some of the most incompetent and harmful human elements in the police department that continue to undermine its foundation.
Based on the current culture, climate and training, it is a good possibility that one day the police department will implode, unless Chief Thompson steps up to the plate as a leader and makes the necessary personnel and structural changes.
Everyone in this event was a part of the problem. Nobody had enough sense to handle it appropriately or call it off before it hit the streets where someone could have been seriously injured.
Even the news reporter on the ABC15 video remarked on the potential for injury based on what was an incident without a victims. Neither officer claiming aggravated assault was injured in any way by the actions of this girl and now she’s being charged for two felonies?
This looks more and more like our inexperienced and overanxious people bit off more than they could chew, and had to find cause for their actions after the fact. This is embarrassing, another story for Tempe PD patrol to laugh at.
The university made the right decision the first time, changed their minds, then ordered Thompson and his command to go find something to justify firing Ferrin. They try too hard to appease the wrong people, to be politically correct without all the facts, and the good reverend sees it for what it is.
What he is doing makes common sense, brings people together, and this is a good lesson for the university to learn from. How about doing right by the people who guarantee your public safety by showing them some respect for a job you wouldn’t want to do? We get enough grief and disrespect from the public and the mentally ill people we deal with every day.
This certainly throws a wrench in the works for the university claiming to be behind a big public outcry that only exists in fringe anti-police academic, activists, and opportunistic racist circles.
The most public opponent to retaining Ferrin just recalled his former opinion in favor of bringing him back to work. Everyone knows that’s the issue here, not the prior items in his file that he cleared of and wasn’t terminated for when asupd had the chance during his first year of probation.
Stop screwing around and bring him back before our police department becomes more of a target for distain and ridicule in law enforcement than it already is.
When I heard the news on this I couldn’t believe it. I was convinced Maupin was another student of the “New ASU English class: ‘The Problem of Whiteness'”
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2015/01/23/asu-offers-class-race-theory-problem-of-whiteness/22229195/
I’m happy to know reverend J Maupin serves a higher purpose than race politics, that he’s willing to go the extra mile to look into an issues and do what leaders rarely do, admit a mistake or change their mind.
I laughed so hard when I heard about the details of this call, what a joke. I’m surprised one of the clown car Ford Escapes wasn’t upside down in the middle of the street with someone pinned underneath it. I’m glad nobody got hurt.
It’s refreshing to see Reverend Jarrett Maupin keeping it real!
Here’s a movie clip in honor of the reverend’s stand against the people too weak to do the right thing in this case and too weak to fix the leadership deficit at asupd.
http://youtu.be/vLaX8UvVUQw
When the head of ASU, Michael Crow, doesn’t support the police department of the university it shows you how far down the list public safety is for university priorities. With the university administration running this department what could go wrong?
Thank you Reverend Jarrett Maupin for rising above the likes of President Michael Crow, Dr. Morgan Olsen (CFO), Mr. Kevin Salcido (HR), and Chief Michael Thompson, by reassessing your previous stance on Officer Stewart Ferrin and coming to a noble, fair and just conclusion on Officer Ferrin.
Just when you thought dumb and dumber was done in the movies it continues on nights in Tempe at our very own ASUPD.
One of our new officers thought it would be ok to pull over an Arizona Cardinals football player driving his Ferrari on what he described on Facebook as a nonsense stop. He also thought nothing of running around the third floor (administration and dispatch) with a shotgun.
This is why people who pass the background process go to police academies, not community colleges.
This is why a police department needs functional leadership, supervisors, a training program, mentoring, and doesn’t get itself into staffing situations where it says YES to everyone who walks through the door and ignores them once they’re off training so they can make us all look like fucking idiots because so many of them don’t know what to do, think they do, and their immediate supervisors don’t know any better either.
At least he wasn’t a ding dong corporal who missed a strap on dildo at the jail until MCSO said, “Look dummy, Wtf?!” Thanks Luke!
Everyone in this event was a part of the problem. Nobody had enough sense to handle it appropriately or call it off before it hit the streets where someone could have been seriously injured.
Even the news reporter on the ABC15 video remarked on the potential for injury based on what was an incident without a victims. Neither officer claiming aggravated assault was injured in any way by the actions of this girl and now she’s being charged for two felonies?
This looks more and more like our inexperienced and overzealous people bit off more than they could chew, and had to find cause for their actions after the fact. This is embarrassing, another story for Tempe PD patrol to laugh at.
What an idiot. Of all the places to draw attention to yourself you chose Facebook, your account is filled with people from the department that can see your posts, and you thought nothing would happen? You haven’t been paying attention.
It’s a toss up on which one’s worse, a guy pulling over Cardinals players for bs stops and bragging about it on social media OR Corporal Khalid running around 4th ave jail and Tempe with a strap on sex toy that just got done being tested out. I hope it inspired Khalid to go buy his own, it might make him less of an asshole to people.
I won’t even try to compare these issues to the whole Smart car pursuit, felony stop, and what do we charge them for call. In any case you have people who should know better and don’t. Is it entirely one issue at a problematic department? No. It’s an issue the comes from many issues.
I agree with those who say Thompson inherited a mess, but what has changed since he took over? Nothing. We still struggle without leadership at this department.
I suggest everyone takes a look at the support officer Ferrin Facebook page. Look at our two chief’s posing with one of Ore’s attorneys while his investigations were taking place. That’s disturbing.