Good Morning Morgan,
This whole thing could have been avoided if you dealt with the command of ASUPD, who now seem to be jumping ship like a not-so-merry band of motherfuckers. Could it be that their incompetence and corruption are finally affecting you? Maybe you should have done something when you were being made aware of the systemic problems within the Arizona State Police Department how many years ago now? It pays to be proactive instead of reactive.
It’s long past the time to put competent, experienced, and proven leadership in charge of the Arizona State University Police Department. You and your peers will find yourself in this position again, we guarantee it. I look forward to seeing what the people suing you have put together, make everything public record, because I prefer transparency in government.
It keeps everyone honest, puts criminals in jail, and serves as a warning to others tempted to violate the public trust and undermine moral integrity. Look at this experience as a time to reflect on what you should have done, what you should be doing, and do the right thing for the Arizona State University community who are in desperate need of a functioning police department that meets and exceeds expectations rather than lying about them to the public.
Regards,
The Arizona State University Community
Here is the article,
http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/education/3984728-morgan-olsen-withdraws-und-president-search
Morgan Olsen has withdrawn from the UND presidential search, officials announced during a search committee meeting Friday morning.
Olsen is the executive vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer of Arizona State University.
Committee Co-chairman Grant Shaft said after the meeting that Olsen’s withdrawal was unrelated to comments made by committee member Leon Osborne about a lawsuit filed against Olsen and other ASU administrators.
The plaintiffs, who are several former university police officers, claim in their suit there is culture of “corruption” within the ASU Police Department that included discrimination and falsifying crime statistics.
The civil lawsuit states Olsen failed to act when made aware of these problems.
“In fact, employees were instructed not to do certain audits and investigations by management after they were advised of the problems,” the complaint says. (This is a PDF link to the actual lawsuit)
The plaintiffs also allege employees were made to falsify crime statistics to make campus appear safer.
“In at least one case, an employee was told to tear up a citation because another officer was having a relationship with the defendant’s sister,” the documents state.
Olsen did not respond to a request for comment.
Osborne brought up the lawsuit at the beginning of the search committee meeting, causing the group to take a break to discuss the legality of further discussion. Olsen’s withdrawal was announced shortly after that.
The Arizona State University management has a systemic corruption problem and the ship is starting to leak. Here’s another example of what happens when a crime boss mentality gets into the leadership of government. The police department, prominent Bio Design scientist, who’s next? Don’t be bullied. Fight back. Document your harassment the best you can, secure tape recordings, get witnesses, written statements, and protect yourself against workplace bullies.
A prominent research administrator and scientist at Arizona State University has filed a lawsuit that accuses school administrators, including President Michael Crow, of abusing their authority, diverting funds intended for her lab and harassing employees who make allegations of ethics violations.
The civil action was filed Feb. 29 in Maricopa County Superior Court by professor Deirdre Meldrum, a university scientist and former dean at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. It echoes and recites many of the allegations Meldrum previously filed in a whistleblower statement and a notice of claim against ASU. Those actions, not previously divulged publicly, were obtained by The Arizona Republic via a government-records request.
The lawsuit includes counts alleging breach of contract, misrepresentation and whistleblower retaliation.
Meldrum, who came to ASU in 2006, said her conflicts began three years after she arrived, when she complained to Crow that research funds and staffing had not been provided as promised in her contract, and that her pay was not commensurate.
“ASU is abusing people and resources for their own benefit,” Meldrum said this week in an interview withThe Republic. “It’s a pattern, and it’s been going on far too long. … I believe a lot of wrong has been done by leaders of the institution. I want them to be held accountable.”
ASU, in a statement, said Meldrum’s allegations are an attempt to divert attention from the real issue: Over the past five years, according to the university, Meldrum’s success in securing research funds has declined “precipitously” — to less than $500,000 in fiscal 2014, and zero in fiscal 2015. At the same time, the statement said, ASU provided her with more than $6 million in funding, 6,000 square feet of lab space and 2,000 square feet of office space.
“We remain hopeful that Dr. Meldrum and her lab will return to the level of success … enjoyed in the first years after she arrived at ASU,” the statement said.
The civil suit names Crow as a defendant along with 12 current or former top ASU administrators and the Arizona Board of Regents, who oversee the state-university system. The Republic reached out to Crow through a spokesman, but he did not respond to an interview request regarding Meldrum’s allegations.
The lawsuit is the latest in a chain of formal complaints filed by Meldrum beginning in 2014, when she sent a whistleblower letter to Gov. Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne. When allegations in that letter were not investigated, Meldrum said, she resubmitted them in January 2015 to newly elected Gov. Doug Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich, as well as to the state Auditor General’s Office.
The 74-page whistleblower letter contains accounts of Meldrum’s six years of conflicts with Crow and other ASU officials, offering far more detail than the lawsuit. At one point, it alleges, university officials staged an after-hours raid to take equipment from her lab.
The lawsuit asserts that ASU breached Meldrum’s contract, made false representations and unlawfully retaliated. It also refers to allegations in her whistleblower letter that Crow has used similar tactics against scores of other professors, administrators and researchers since he became university president in 2002. Her complaint letter listed 172 former ASU employees among the “fallen stars.”
Most have left ASU, and some have assumed prominent positions at other universities.
Meldrum asserts that she brought in more than $35 million in research grants to ASU, and secured a total of $80 million during her career.
The state universities have a whistleblower policy that prohibits retaliation against employees who disclose information of public concern, including what employees believe are violations of law, mismanagement, gross waste of public monies, or abuse of authority.
Meldrum said none of the officials acted on her whistleblower complaint, instead treating it as a personnel issue.
Mia Garcia, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, confirmed the office reviewed the complaint letter and concluded it reflected a personnel dispute over Meldrum’s contract, not a whistleblower report of official misconduct as envisioned by the statute.
“Whistleblower complaints raise a matter of public concern that would otherwise not be known,” Garcia said, adding, “We take whistleblower complaints very seriously, but they have to be an issue of public concern.”
Regents General Counsel Nancy Tribbensee last year sent a letter to Meldrum’s attorney, Daniel Bonnett, asserting that most of the issues raised by Meldrum were moot because she did not report them within 365 days per university policy.
Tribbensee dismissed Meldrum’s more recent claims about allegedly improper financial transactions involving research funds, arguing they “do not appear to … be ‘on a matter of public concern.’ ”
Meldrum alleges that after she began to complain of wrongdoing and retaliation, university officials moved to cut her pay, authority and research operations.
Meldrum remains director of ASU’s Center for Biosignatures Discovery Automation within the university’s Biodesign Institute. The center is investigating cancer cells and diagnoses. Meldrum was notified in September that the center’s budget and lab space will be cut substantially if she does not produce $2 million in additional research grants.
Earlier last year, an ASU news release announced that Meldrum had been inducted as a fellow with the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. It said she has secured more than $35 million in research grants during the past decade, “among the highest individual grant awards in ASU history.”
Meldrum, a professor of electrical engineering, was recruited to ASU from the University of Washington and touted by Crow as a “visionary” with a “track record of moving science and scientists to the cutting edge of discovery.”
She earlier held jobs at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has led research on topics ranging from genome automation to live single-cell analysis and undersea sensor robotics.
Meldrum’s various legal filings allege that she became a victim of administrative abuse after identifying “irregularities … involving mismanagement and mishandling of finances.”
Meldrum asserts that Crow reneged on a promise to provide $6 million for new engineering research and $5 million for engineering fellowships to attract top-level students. She also claims her pay was substantially below salaries received by other deans.
When Meldrum took those concerns to Crow in 2009, her whistleblower letter alleges, he “closed the door and launched into a 20-minute verbal tirade during which he yelled and threatened her.”
The whistleblower letter alleges that Crow chastised her for asking for a pay raise, declaring, “This will be the most painful dollars you have ever received.”
At the time, Meldrum was dean of ASU’s engineering schools with about 201 faculty and 7,000 students.
In subsequent months, Crow announced that Meldrum was being replaced as dean and named ASU’s “senior scientist,” tabbed to found a new biosignatures lab.
Meldrum contends the maneuver was a demotion in disguise, and that university administrators began a campaign of retribution. In the whistleblower letter, she alleged that Crow “orchestrated her removal as dean of the School of Engineering with unfulfilled promises and false representations while relegating her to a position with the vacuous title of ASU ‘senior scientist.’ ”
During a 2010 meeting with Crow and other administrators, Meldrum alleges in the whistleblower letter, the ASU president rebuked her for complaining that the biosignatures venture was not getting promised support, then explained that “a good part of everything being done at ASU is puffery and papier mache, and that it was their job to support the illusion before it all collapsed on itself.”
Meldrum’s complaint says Crow then asked her to assume a new role helping promote women in science. The whistleblower letter shows she responded angrily in an email, noting that Crow had just stripped her of her title as dean. “This was done against my will, and no explanation was ever offered,” Meldrum wrote. “I was one of the few women deans in engineering in the country …”
“Now, you ask me to help ASU address the national issue of the disappointing participation of women in science and engineering, which I’m a victim of the very system that discourages women from climbing to the top … You have made me a laughing stock on this matter.”
By late 2011, the biosignatures project still had not geared up. Meldrum alleges it was renamed the National Biomarker Development Alliance, and she was not on the leadership team, let alone director.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit alleges that unidentified ASU officials began making unauthorized withdrawals from Meldrum’s research account without notifying her, and concealed or withheld the records.
Meldrum alleges her objections prompted a rebuke from the administration and imposition of “impossible” performance requirements for published articles, grant revenues and work metrics not imposed on other ASU center directors or professors. She also was told she would no longer be ASU’s senior scientist, according to a notice of claim that preceded her lawsuit.
After Crow arrived in Tempe in 2002, he rebranded ASU as the model for a “New American University” — an institution that would provide broad access to a quality education while conducting research that has meaningful impact on society. The university began aggressively ramping up its research, turning the money and prestige into academic success and economic development.
Under Crow’s direction, ASU expanded its enrollment, academic sweep, scientific enterprises and status. Arizona State became the nation’s largest public university under one president, with 91,000 students. ASU is recognized as a national leader in innovation and entrepreneurship. It has grown to five campuses in the Phoenix area, plus offices throughout the world and a growing online enrollment.
Hiring top-notch faculty with lucrative research grants proved critical to those achievements.
But Bonnett, Meldrum’s attorney, alleged in letters to Ducey and Brnovich last year that Crow had engaged in “a consistent pattern and practice” of recruiting celebrated professors with incentives, “then failing to honor and deliver upon those promises.” The letters said anyone who dared to object would get punished and silenced, or forced out.
Meldrum’s are not the first allegations of this kind to be leveled.
Before and during Crow’s tenure as vice provost at Columbia University, noted mathematical economist Graciela Chichilnisky pursued a series of lawsuits against the New York university for gender discrimination and other torts. Online federal and state court documents show the suits ended with settlements, the most recent during a trial in 2008.
Case files were not immediately available, but Chichilnisky told The Republic that she collected more than $1 million in litigation based on claims of continuing discrimination. She said the dispute began when she questioned substandard pay and working conditions, then escalated into a “toxic” environment during Crow’s tenure.
“They tried to destroy my work,” Chichilnisky said. “He froze my research funds. He sent five movers by surprise and removed all of my books and computers from eight offices. Then they locked the offices and changed the keys.”
Crow declined to comment on the Chichilnisky case, as did an ASU spokesman.
In another lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, ASU professor George “Bob” Pettit in 2005 accused Crow and the university of improperly firing him as director of ASU’s Cancer Research Institute. The civil complaint alleged breach of contract, fraud, conspiracy, defamation and whistleblower reprisal.
Pettit has written more than a dozen books and is considered a pre-eminent researcher, responsible for scores of anti-cancer drugs and patents based on marine life and natural compounds. The National Cancer Institute once described him as an American “treasure.”
Pettit declined comment for this story. But court papers and news articles say Pettit, like Meldrum, got crosswise with Crow over finances and ASU’s handling of intellectual property rights, or patents. In 2005, Pettit was removed as leader of the institute, and 31 employees were terminated.
At the time, ASU said Pettit was demoted because his research funding had dwindled and his lab had been hit with numerous safety violations.
In 2011, Pettit won a federal verdict for part of his case against the Board of Regents — after Crow had been dismissed as a defendant. That decision was overturned on appeal in 2013. Pettit remains a tenured professor at the university, where he has worked for more than a half century.
Much of Meldrum’s lawsuit and her whistleblower letter focus on internal ASU politics and legalities involving research funding, leadership, credit and control.
She alleges in the lawsuit that unauthorized university officials transferred large sums of money — nearly $100,000 in one case — without explanation, and refused to disclose where the money went.
The lawsuit also claims Arizona Technology Enterprises, the university’s patenting arm, “colluded” with several former employees “in misappropriating intellectual property from the lab,” an assertion that echoes Pettit’s lawsuit a decade ago.
Meldrum said she was awarded $2 million before her arrival at ASU to work on a project with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute involving robotic efforts to collect and study microbiotic organisms in the ocean. Meldrum’s whistleblower letter described the outcome as “an orchestrated, back-stabbing collusion,” and requested an independent investigation.
After Meldrum was dismissed from the project, according to the whistleblower letter, her lab was entered — apparently on a weekend night — by an employee who removed research equipment and supplies.
In emails to ASU administrators, Meldrum wrote: “You sneak into my laboratory in off hours, you steal my equipment and supplies, and you stash them in a hidden place. What possible explanation can justify these actions?”
University officials answered in emails that the Monterey Bay institute had requested the change of project leadership, and off-hours removal of research gear was just a misunderstanding. Some items were returned.
Meldrum also pressed ASU officials to fulfill funding obligations in her employment contract, which she said included $500,000 for a project known as NEPTUNE, an undersea observatory for research on new microbes along the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate in the Pacific Ocean.
In November 2012 emails that Meldrum sent to then-Provost Elizabeth Phillips, she said financial manipulations were undermining the project.
Meldrum claimed money was shifted into and out of accounts in a way that was “dishonest and tantamount to embezzlement.” In a July 2013 email to Pamela Mulhearn, then director of Biodesign Institute research operations, she alleged that her research work had been shorted $840,000 as a result of a “shell game.”
Meldrum says she was unable to get the transaction records, or to get administrators to investigate. Instead, she was reprimanded by Phillips, who alleged that the “tone” of Meldrum’s email to Mulhearn violated ASU’s ethics code.
According to Meldrum’s lawsuit, ASU officials began imposing performance “metrics” last year that were not in her employment contract and are not imposed on other faculty.
According to the lawsuit, Meldrum was informed if she could not secure at least $2 million in additional grants or contracts by March 1, her office and research space would be reduced dramatically.
In a statement to The Republic, ASU said the cutbacks will not take full effect until 2020, and in the meantime Meldrum “remains an accomplished scientist and tenured member of the faculty, and she will be treated similarly to other ASU faculty members.”
Meldrum’s lawsuit contends the cutbacks are retaliatory.
“They’ve been trying every which way they can to get rid of me,” she said in an interview with The Republic.
“It affects people’s lives and careers. It impacts the reputation and potential success of the institution. … Someone has to speak up and do something about it.”
Why is Chief Mike Thompson running around the ASUPD Tempe station in a panic? Why is he sweating so much? What does he have to worry about? Rumors were all over the agency claiming it was the recent employee lawsuit, a jealous threatening husband from another act of philandering, his bosses were caught off guard again, but nobody seems to know for sure. The number one question is if he didn’t do anything wrong then he wouldn’t have anything to worry about right? Another question is why does the Gilbert Police Department have a unit stationed outside his home? Don’t be scared Mike, just be thankful that Gilbert PD can come to your unnecessary rescue.
ASUPD Chief Mike Thompson enjoys a level of public safety service that the ASU community can only dream of. Year after year at Arizona State University staffing at ASUPD is so pathetic that shift Sergeants have to juggle staff around just to have an officer or two at each campus for the 100,000+ who depend on them. Why a cronic staffing shortage for over half a decade?
Arizona State University Police Commander Louis Scichilone is under the delusion that the Gilbert Police Department is going to take a disgraceful command stooge from ASUPD seriously?!? LMAO, delusional.
Lou Scichilone wishes he was a real police officer, a real police commander, but he’s just another one of Pickens’s left over hostile flunkies who spent a short stint on patrol before racing up through the ranks without proving anything worthwhile. The flunkies in ASUPD command proved nothing more than their ability to ineptly lead an organization into ruin. Don’t take our word for it, ask any employee who left, they are legion.
ASUPD had real leadership examples, but they couldn’t stand working under Pickens’s corrupt regime like many who can’t stand working under Thompson’s.
We had some command who proved themselves elsewhere, came to ASUPD, found out what a unprofessional workplace cesspool it was, and promptly left to succeed as Chiefs at other departments.
Lou Scichilone has nothing to offer another police department but plummeting morale and misery for honorable officers who will be confronted by his insatiable desire to lie, lie, lie, and get away with it.
If he can’t stand the workload of sitting around on his butt doing nothing like his career mentor former Chief John Pickens, then good luck succeeding in the real world where there are consequences for lying and being part of a destructive clique that destroys a police department. Abandon Ship! Jump! Swim! No chance Lou, your reputation precedes you. Everyone knows, because that’s what happens when you do dishonorable things to fellow police officers.
We are not surprised one bit. We have been acutely aware of many issues of public concern within the Arizona State University Police Department. When the details of this lawsuit are fully known we will find ways to supply any information we are aware of to assist them in their case against these defendants and others not listed. This initial lawsuit appears to be a beginning.
I suspect more will come forward and break the code of silence, despite all the threats against them doing so. Nobody should be afraid of these liars, cowards, bullies, and immoral people.
I would recommend that anyone who has been a employee/victim of the Arizona State University Police Department management to come forward now and here’s how:
In the Courthouse News article, http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/02/22/asu-police-accused-of-faking-crime-stats.htm , it mentions the law office managing this case, Dow Law Office, founder David Dow. I looked up the firm: http://dowlawaz.com/ and here is the contact information: http://dowlawaz.com/contact-us/
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2016/02/25/ex-asu-officers-sue-say-they-were-forced-make-school-appear-safer/80860216/
http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/02/22/asu-police-accused-of-faking-crime-stats.htm
https://www.mintpressnews.com/these-cops-are-so-fed-up-with-corruption-theyre-suing-their-own-department/214235/
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/31332998/former-asu-cops-sue-claim-school-forced-them-to-make-campus-appear-safer
http://www.infowars.com/these-cops-are-so-fed-up-with-corruption-theyre-suing-their-own-department/
http://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-news/97983221-story
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/022616_asu_crime/asu-police-accused-faking-crime-stats/
http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/article/former_asu_police_say_school_directed_them_to_change_crime_stats/news
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/ex-asu-police-officers-accuse-university-of-doctoring-crime-statistics-8088937
http://www.theeagle.com/news/nation/ex-asu-officers-lawsuit-alleges-crime-stats-were-altered/article_aea02c2d-e2ae-501b-b47a-0b034ed95b8a.html
http://phoenix.suntimes.com/phx-news/7/83/314688/former-asu-cops-sue-claim-school-forced-them-to-make-campus-appear-safer
http://nvs24.com/news/us/Ex-ASU-officers-lawsuit-alleges-crime-stats-were-altered-3835378.html
http://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/ex-asu-officers-lawsuit-alleges-crime-stats-were-altered
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/10/15/public-disservice-asu-discrimination-harassment-settlements/73852816/
https://sundevilsagainstsexualassault.wordpress.com/tag/mark-janda/
Here is the link for the Arizona chapter: http://www.acluaz.org/
Arizona State University Police Department Austed Chief John Pickens is still employed in a bogus job to pay for his silence. 150,ooo a year for being silent, reports to Morgan Olsen.
Arizona State University Police Department Officer Mark Janda has a history of liability with the department, a clique member willing to injure employees targeted by ASUPD command.
Arizona State University Police Department Sergeant Epps was hurting employees trying to leave, playing into the lack of integrity that has become the bedrock of management within ASUPD.
Arizona State University Human Resources Head Kevin Salcido was part of the silence dissent within policy, was aware of many issues, but did nothing about them.
Arizona State University falls under ABOR and has allowed illegal and toxic situations to remain at ASUPD for decades.
Arizona State University Police Department Sergeant Pamela Osborne, clique member, was known for damaging employees in the Police Officer Field Training Program. Her lack of integrity has no business in law enforcement.
Arizona State University VP Morgan Olsen was aware of issues within ASUPD and ignored them.
Arizona State University Police Department Commander Orr was a clique founder and defender and hurt other employees. His lack of integrity has no business in law enforcement.
Arizona State University Police Department Commander Louis Scichilone has been caught in so many lies it isn’t even funny. He’s a protected clique member. His lack of integrity has no business in law enforcement.
Arizona State University Police Department current Chief Michael Thompson is every bit as corrupt as former Chief John Pickens and is an embarrassment to the profession. He continued to protect the clique as it hurt other employees. His lack of integrity has no business in law enforcement.
Arizona State University Police Department former Assistant Chief James Hardina, clique member, quickly rose through the ranks on his willingness to act out against the employees who were targeted by ASUPD command. His lack of integrity has no business in law enforcement.
Arizona State University Police Department Hall of Command Shame, No Integrity
For some strange reason the command of the Arizona State University Police Department hasn’t been able to staff its campuses with police officers for many years and counting. For 5 years or more ASU Police command has been offering time and a half OVERTIME pay for any officers willing to work more than 40 hours in a desperate attempt to shore up the shortages.
Why with aggressive hiring attempts, heavy advertising, and its own in house promotion department can ASUPD not staff its own campuses? Why is this going on for 5+ years and counting. Even worse, ASU Police can’t staff its own overtime events and has to beg for help from police departments all over the state. Why is this? Because the command at the Arizona State University Police Department are absolute egotistical morons who lack the most important quality in law enforcement INTEGRITY.
ABSOLUTELY NO INTEGRITY WHATSOEVER IN LEADERSHIP
The Arizona State University Police Badge Recycling Service Costs the taxpayers & students 100’s of 1000’s annually in lost officer hiring and training costs with liability around every corner.
While officers all over the nation make SACRIFICES, face real danger, are injured and killed in the line of duty, ASU Police command attempts to steal some of that honor in it’s ongoing push to reinvent itself. While troops have been overseas for 15 years making sacrifices, facing death, catastrophic injury, mental breakdown, deprivation, isolation, ASU Police command attempts to piggy-back on the legacy of SACRIFICE through service.
When you understand what constitutes service at the Arizona State University and the systemic legacy of no integrity standards for connected people within the agency this moniker they have bestowed upon themselves is quite disgusting, inappropriate, and based on nothing but a desire to appear to have a legitimacy that was never there, a legitimacy continually undermined by the very same people claiming to have it.
Pushing paperwork, fabricating retention IA’s on employees, playing favorites in every promotion process, running a never-ending staffing shortage, and doing 10-39’s may qualify for a service, but it most assuredly does not rise to the level of SACRIFICE. If anyone in the Arizona State Police Department is undergoing a SACRIFICE, it’s the people who have to work for these assholes.
A big THANK YOU to the investigative reporters who continue undeterred on the trail of waste, public safety mismanagement, and corruption at the Arizona State University! Thank you Ray Stern for this excellent work.
It’s an honorable endeavor to expose crooks and dishonesty. You provide an invaluable service to the public by doing so, especially when public servants fail to be trustworthy. We were worried local reporters gave up. Frankly, it’s hard to ignore the stinking trail of mismanaged public safety. It’s impossible to ignore the wasted taxpayer dollars and student tuition at ASU. In the middle of a statewide budget crisis, cutbacks, and continued tuition increases the ASU administration continues to spend millions frivolously like the celebrities they imagine themselves to be. A far cry from the original charter of the university.
This particular story of waste is small in comparison, not millions, only $155,000 for John Pickens, the “Executive Director of University Security Initiatives“ to do what exactly? Delegate everything to subordinate supervisors who would then delegate to an army of subordinate supervisors the way John Pickens did while he was Chief at ASUPD? Apparently Pickens has nobody to delegate to anymore and do his homework for him.
For an assistant collaborator $155,000 is not only quite a bit of money, it’s a fraud. They believe the public are idiots willing to trust in their public relations spin without end. Maybe they thought investigative reporters wouldn’t notice, maybe years of business as usual management makes them believe they are untouchable. Whatever the reason two wrongs don’t make a right. The University administration’s unwillingness to admit a problem with public safety only fuels more liability.
To buy the silence of the former shamed ASU Chief of Police John Pickens after the Ore/Ferrin incident, the university administration created a high-salaried fictitious position for him and a small office for him to occupy. The title, “Executive Director of University Security Initiatives” is a worthless empty position and the facts are clear.
If only Mr. Pickens could say, “Yes, I have been sitting on my ass for a year with nothing to show for it.” That’s honesty Mr. Pickens, something you and your cronies have always had a problem with.
Like the current ASUPD Chief Mike Thompson, he was frequently caught in lies by employees because he couldn’t remember how to keep the stories straight or realize his employees would easily find out the truth.
Can you smell it? We do, and we commend the New Times for focusing on another AZ corruption story besides the Sheriff we already knew was corrupt and thought himself to be above the rules, above the law, the way ASUPD command staff has done for years without interruption.
Do a search for the position John Pickens was gifted, “Executive Director of University Security Initiatives “, try to find out about the man and what he does. You won’t find anything but a name, title, and a $155,000 bill for the tax payers of Arizona to be tossed on the backs of college students trying to pay off loans for years to come. What does Pickens do? According to some he hangs out at the Apple-bees restaurant on Rural Rd in Tempe getting to know the staff more than he got to know any police department employees. Maybe they can find him something he’s capable of doing since he has proven incapable of managing his time in his latest over-paid and under-worked endeavor.
His new position was not open to the public or other university employees as it was created and immediately gifted to John Pickens in a process even more shady than ASUPD internal promotions. In this position he still makes more than Chiefs of Police all over the state, while non-supervisory employees at the police department continue to make less than their counterparts after his long tenure as Chief of police.
The unethical hiring and promotional practices are long standing jokes within the ASU Police Department, qualified experienced candidates are overlooked as a rule for compliant inexperienced ones with little other employment options except ASUPD. Look at the internal processes for positions within the department, who applied, who was picked, who was rejected, and who was told they couldn’t apply despite being more qualified than the pool of applicants chosen. Apparently this is a university wide problem.
The irony of John Pickens being at the head of a technology driven initiative is lost on non-ASU Police employees who are unfamiliar with him. John Pickens spent 14 years at the department struggling with technology, how to use Microsoft Outlook and Word to the point where (as everyone knows) his secretary and subordinate staff had to compose his emails for them to be void of numerous spelling and grammatical errors. It would have been difficult to find a more unqualified applicant for the university’s continued Feel Safe without Being Safe Campaign (cameras don’t solve crimes, they just make people feel safe instead of actually being safe). This is how Morgan Olsen approaches the public safety and it’s something he knows little about.
Former ASUPD Chief John Pickens will spent his following years at the University hiding out in an office on the second floor of the University Services Building reporting to his former subordinate Alan Clark and his former direct supervisor Morgan Olsen. I’m sure his new boss Alan Clark remembers when AZDPS were called in to investigate the latest sexual harassment complaint against him and then good old boy Chief John Pickens let it sit on his desk until he retired and positioned himself to double dip at the university by returning as ASU’s Director of Emergency Preparedness in 2012.
That IA (internal police investigation of its own employees) went right in the trash once Pickens’s #2 retired, despite the ASUPD policy of an IA having to be conducted within months instead of years. Policy is always ignored when convenient, one of many ethical concerns with the Arizona State University Police Department and the people still running it like a backwoods good old boy club house with badges and guns.
The Arizona State University Administration refuses to formerly admit or comment on any pertinent issue of corruption or abuse within the university or the failures of management in public safety. However, they acknowledge the failures informally believing that a storm of public relations, swift new appointments, and outright lies will dissuade the public from the truth. The truth will always be there, issues with the ASUPD have been ignored, and any attempt to bring the issues to light has been met with attempts to silence, intimidate, and remove suspected critics.
Look at the investigation launched on current and former department employees suspected of writing this blog that was outsourced to the Arizona Department of Public Safety before Frank Milstead took over, found out about it, and supposedly ended it. The assault on the first amendment is nothing new at the University under Michael Crow, there’s a long history of it at his “New American University”.
When John Pickens says, “I’m not sitting around on my butt doing nothing.” do you believe it? Read the New Times Article and ask yourself if he’s believable or not.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/ex-police-chief-john-pickens-cushy-asu-job-provides-security-for-pickens-7688403
We say, “Bullshit JP, prove it or else you’re still the self-serving liar we know you to be.” Keep digging New Times, you’ll find the proverbial bodies for mismanagement, corruption, and many more undesirable practices at the Arizona State University, especially within the police department.
See what they have to say about these issues, but be prepared to get a vague canned response if you get one at all. To that I say continue submitting Freedom Of Information Act Requests, FOIA, contact your Arizona State governor, Arizona state legislature, and Arizona board of regents for clarity and accountability. Document everything and prepare to be surprised by how ugly the truth is. The ASU administration needs to realize you can’t protect the public with lies, broken promises, public relations, cameras, gimmicks, or unqualified unethical police department leadership that doesn’t have the confidence or respect of the people they lead.
The Arizona State University School Newspaper, The State Press, had an interview with ASU Police Chief Michael Thompson. The full article is here:
Apparently the school newspaper is the only place Chief Thompson feels comfortable telling less than truthful statements about the causes of ASUPD’s many systemic everlasting problems. Professional investigative reporters would tear him a new one for the statements he made in this article.
It’s time to look at these statements for what they’re worth.
ASUPD Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: Chief Michael Thompson stated, “It’s always tight, we’re efficient with our money, and we spend it wisely, but it all has to do with budgeting.”
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: “It’s always tight…” More lies from ASU Police Chief Mike Thompson. Thompson has treated the ASU Police Budget much like congress treats our tax dollars. Spend, spend, and spend because somebody else is paying for it. More ASU Police issues get media attention? Run over to the Fulton Center asking for more money. Money isn’t the issue, its mismanagement. We would like Chief Thompson to answer these questions.
How tight is it when you have funding to pay officers and dispatchers time and a half for over three years to cover shifts because the root problems of ASUPD have never been addressed?
How tight is it when you create 3 new management lines starting at $70,000 a piece while we are continuing to lose employees to other departments at an alarming rate? Whoops! $210,000 and more when they work department paid overtime. Are we at 20 Sergeants now? How many new civilian lines have you created? Add another $100,000. Congratulations on adding well over a quarter million to the payroll of the Arizona State University Police Department that have nothing to do with patrol.
How tight is it when you move a Sergeant to the “Events Overtime position” held by officers for decades and making them an “Events Overtime Supervisor” then create another job “Events Overtime Assistant” at a time when the university is looking to make huge 100 Million dollars cuts and raise tuition 11% overnight. You just tripled the cost of running that small facet of the department that has nothing to do with day to day patrol operations.
How tight is it when you have more supervisors on shifts than working, patrolling police officers the same way Pickens mismanaged the department?
How tight is it when you can afford to pay so many supervisors to sit in their offices for entire shifts playing on their computers or having shift long 12hr social events?
How tight is it really when each campus has a commander, Tempe campus has two commanders, all five of them making six figures, and they spend the work week in Tempe doing what month after month, year after year? Doing your job?
How tight is it when you come under fire for having surplus assault rifles, get ordered by your boss to return them, and then under their nose you order 20K? worth of assault rifles, scopes, and silencers of the type only trained SWAT teams would use? Are you appeasing the firearms clique?
The truth is it’s not very tight at all. In fact it’s pretty loose. Chief Mike Thompson and his command are inefficient with the money allocated to them, and they spend it like fools not realizing they are making the same catastrophic mistakes of the Pickens era because they get pat on the backs for mismanagement failure by a university administration much more concerned with this blog than making sure they do their jobs. Brilliant.
ASUPD Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: Thompson said while ASUPD may be understaffed, it has also been misrepresented by the media.
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: Really? This is why you’re talking to the kid’s newspaper and not the grown-ups who do it for a living earning national awards for their work? The fact based analysis of investigative reporters, citing every detail as they go in black and white is too much to handle? Tell us Chief Thompson, no dismissive generalizations, what exactly has been misrepresented and how? Put it on the table, put up or shut up. It sounds like your criticisms of the Integrity Report. The criticism is intentionally vague, based on emotion, and wholly lacks supporting truth.
ASUPD Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: Common policy for college campus security typically involves having one security officer for every 1,000 students, Thompson said, and ASU has a large population of online students who are in no need of ASU police protection.
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: It’s also not just “common policy”, it’s a FEDERAL GUIDELINE set forth by the US Department of Justice. These guidelines are for numbers of Police Officers, not Police Aides, and ASUPD does not have a Security Officer title.
By Chief Thompson’s vague statements we can only assume he is referring to this article: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/09/21/asu-police-staffing-lags-campus-growth/15999573/
The ASUPD Chief’s Advisory Board showed the department to be short 50-80 officers. A national report found ASU’s ratio of sworn officers to students is about 25 percent below the national average for large, public schools. Should we believe ASUPD short timer Chief Thompson or a retired ASU Police Sergeant, 20 years on the job, stressed the low staffing and related safety concerns here:
Retired ASU Sgt. Marvin Tahmahkera compared the daily scheduling of patrol officers to a popular video game in which a player must manipulate random blocks into position before the pieces fall to the bottom.
“Every day it seemed like a game of Tetris. Someone would call in sick,” said Tahmahkera, who retired last year after 22 years with the department.
He recalls responding to a domestic-violence call by himself at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, a situation where law-enforcement best practices say having a backup officer is a necessary precaution. The staffing levels sometimes made it difficult to patrol dorms, look for underage drinkers and rattle doors at night to make sure they were locked.
“Many times I was the officer in charge, and I was just praying nothing would happen that night,” he said.
Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: Common policy for college campus security typically involves having one security officer for every 1,000 students, Thompson said, and ASU has a large population of online students who are in no need of ASU police protection.
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: First, as Police Chief of the Arizona State Police Department Thompson should know the difference between police officers and security officers, so we’ll just assume this was a State Press mistake.
Secondly Mike Thompson is wrong again, ONE officer for every THOUSAND? WRONG. The typical number is at least TWO POLICE OFFICERS for every THOUSAND!
Look at official government and reputable sources for this information, not a politician trusted with public safety:
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), within the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ)
http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/pdfs/Officer-to-Population-Ratios.pdf
http://policepay.blogspot.com/2008/09/sworn-police-officers-per-1000-citizens.html
Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: Common policy for college campus security typically involves having one security officer for every 1,000 students, Thompson said, and ASU has a large population of online students who are in no need of ASU police protection.
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: Chief Thompson says ASU has a large population of online students and that throws off the requirements for staffing? At the time of this article those numbers read like this, ASU is the largest public university in the country with 82,000 students, including 13,000 online-only students. At the time of his statement to the State Press ASU is set to break the 100,000 student mark. How many are online students and how much has the department grown to meet this number? These 13,000 online students never come to ASU? We will do the math for Chief Thompson, 100,000-13,000 = 87,000 What about the 87,000 students Mike T? The truth on ASUPD Staffing can be found here: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/09/21/asu-police-staffing-lags-campus-growth/15999573/
Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: “We hired 15 new police officers this year,” Thompson said. “We are looking at different salary strategies to see what would be the best way to retain some (of the current) employees.”
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: The key word of “salary strategies” is more aptly called “throwing a little bone” or “salary schemes”. So far all they came up with a salary scheme that nets an officer a few hundred dollars per year above their salary for sticking around. The starting ASUPD officer makes 48 and stays at 48 seemingly forever, while other agencies start in the low 50’s and go up yearly. Overtime for hours past 40? Nope. You get COMP time to take time off, but due to staffing you just accrue it. When Thompson says, “to retain some (of the current) employees.” He better move quick, anyone that can leave does, they see the future isn’t at ASUPD making peanuts, getting denied opportunities and promotions by a corrupt command who gives them to their political appointees.
Chief Thompson’s STATEMENT: These strategies will be key in maintaining the size of ASU’s police force because it lost employees in the past.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a horrible problem, but we do have some attrition,” he said. “We have some people transferring to different agencies, but not more than normal.”
Thompson said losing officers was not always due to issues of salary but often a result of their desire to seize different opportunities.
ASUPD Integrity Report’s RESPONSE: Listen to the above statement and ask yourself if it sounds like an honest answer or deceptive one? In one sentence Thompson says the salary strategies will be key in maintaining the size of the police force, but ends with saying losing officers was not always due to salary, but “desire to seize different opportunities”. Once again as with his predecessor Chief Thompson can’t acknowledge the leadership vacuum at ASUPD despite having far more supervisors than patrol units.
When Thompson says, “We have some people transferring to different agencies, but not more than normal.” Does he mean “…more than normal” for ASU Police OR more than normal for an average police department, the two are very different. Normal police departments don’t have scheduling panic freak-out sessions (emergency meetings) for consecutive years because they lose entire squads and need to replace them overnight. The turnover will continue as more ASUPD officers read the writing on the wall and realize they can never promote/make more money/or get a specialty position based on merit or experience.
The ASU Police Command tired long ago of putting their mugs out in front of media cameras and looking like fools, so they created yet another ASU Police Job Title, Public Information Officer, months ago and have been unsuccessful in filling it until now. This position changed to “Media Relations” with no police experience.
The fact of the matter is that ASU Police Chief Thompson, like his predecessor, lacks the essential skills of leadership and management experience that will grow the ASU Police Department and make it place where officers, civilians, starting their law enforcement careers feel important, valued, and not discarded.
The complete lack of integrity within the command levels of this agency
is a stink that few can abide. The latest objective truth of this are the promotion appointments,
passing over the most qualified candidates for political appointments.
Why would any hard working officer subject themselves to this when there are respectable agencies with reputable leadership to work with
and actual opportunities, not make believe ones?
The former chief surrounded himself with an army of supervisors, but that’s not how the work gets done and is a proven business model failure. Thompson is doing more of the same things that failed Pickens. His two-faced dishonesty will significantly undermine the trust employees are supposed to have for a police chief, for an organization meant to be held together with trust in one another. The cronyism is every bit as bad as it was under Pickens and the one thing the ASU Police Department doesn’t need are more issues undermining morale.
Here’s the original article:
By Isabella Castillo | 05/01/15 1:46pm
Understaffed and already on a tight budget, the ASU Police Department is bracing itself for state budget cuts to come in the next year.
The state Legislature cut university funding by $99 million for the 2016 fiscal year, and ASU is already working on strategies to work with the reduction in funds.
ASU Chief of Police Michael Thompson said the police department was told the funding reductions should not affect the money allocated to campus security, but he added that they are still waiting to see “how everything turns out” as far as the budget is concerned.
ASUPD is on a tight budget as it is, and the school has struggled with criticism in the past for being understaffed in its security department for a school of its size.
“It’s always tight,” Thompson said. “We’re efficient with our money, and we spend it wisely, but it all has to do with budgeting.”
Thompson said while ASUPD may be understaffed, it has also been misrepresented by the media.
Common policy for college campus security typically involves having one security officer for every 1,000 students, Thompson said, and ASU has a large population of online students who are in no need of ASU police protection.
ASU is working on expanding its police force, as well as making an effort to retain the officers already employed.
“We hired 15 new police officers this year,” Thompson said. “We are looking at different salary strategies to see what would be the best way to retain some (of the current) employees.”
These strategies will be key in maintaining the size of ASU’s police force because it lost employees in the past.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a horrible problem, but we do have some attrition,” he said. “We have some people transferring to different agencies, but not more than normal.”
Thompson said losing officers was not always due to issues of salary but often a result of their desire to seize different opportunities.
Police Aide Richard Bailey also said ASUPD has suffered with issues regarding the size of its police force.
“We’ve had a surge for a period of time where we had to fill slots because we just didn’t have enough manpower,” Bailey said. “We’ve been undermanned for years. We’ve increased our number of students in ASU tremendously, but they haven’t increased the police department to match it. That’s a problem. There will be days when we only have three officers to take care of this campus here in Tempe.”
Bailey said officers leave for different reasons, but a primary reason is that police departments in cities like Chandler, Tempe and Peoria are able to offer them better paying positions.
“Our officers don’t make as much money as any of the cities surrounding us,” Bailey said. “Because of the rollbacks in periods of financial setbacks, we had to let people go.”
Despite difficulties with funding, Bailey said he has complete faith in Thompson’s management.
“If he can get the funding to do what he wants to do, he could develop this police force, which handles all four campuses, into a force that we would be proud of,” Bailey said. “(He) is doing everything he can to correct the problems in the workforce. He’s a very smart man and he’s going to do a great job for ASUPD.”
Increasing the size of its staff is not the only method for preserving the safety of ASU’s students the police department has implemented.
Recently, ASU launched the Livesafe mobile app, which allows students to be in direct contact with the police force, as well as utilize tools like SafeWalk, which allows friends or family to monitor each other’s step-by-step progress when walking alone.
However, students like civil engineering senior Ashley Archambault are still concerned about the size of ASU’s police force and hopeful that it will continue to expand.
“If officers are being recruited to other places that are paying higher, we need to be allocating more money to that,” Archambault said. “It’s such a big campus. As a woman, I would feel safer knowing there was more personnel.”
Notes:
the fact that when gauging police coverage in a given city, the number of police officers actually engaged in direct law enforcement activities, often referred to as patrol strength, is in many ways a more meaningful measure than the total number of officers on the payroll.
The public has a right to know how mismanagement within the Arizona State University Police Department affects the quality of public safety for the ASU community. The public pays close to 15 million dollars to fund a university police department that is grossly understaffed and top-heavy. How did this happen? One major contributor is poor departmental morale compounded by an unfair and unethical promotional process. After all, why would a rookie officer want to stay in a department where the only way to receive a pay raise is a promotion, and promotions are not based on merit or experience?
Many employees are frustrated by the promotional process (“Friend-zone appointments”) because it has the appearances of being nothing more than nepotism shrouded by illusions of “fairness” and “merit”. The qualifications of the candidates in the last three “processes” varied considerably. In each “process” there were novices and overqualified candidates; none of the overqualified candidates were selected with the exception of J.Morel as sergeant (he’s a retired cop from a real police department with triple the combined patrol experience of his fellow newly appointed sergeants). The other two ASUPD sergeant appointments–K. Fuchtman and D. Melton–have the LEAST amount of patrol experience of candidates in the sergeant process. Melton spent most of his career riding shotgun with another department (Tempe) on a special unit, barely working in his own department; Fuchtman spent most of her time at the department on FMLA, having babies, and being sick. She was appointed by her own husband to be both a field training officer (FTO), and a bicycle instructor. Prior to this promotional process, Fuchtman had taken a YEAR off. When she was actually on patrol, she had a high number of public complaints, as noted in a recent New Times article.
Not too terribly long ago, ASU tried to crucify former ASUPD Officer S. Ferrin by reversing several complaints against Ferrin that had been close and marked as “unfounded” (the department investigated the claims and determined them to be false). Several other employees who have also been given cushy positions within the department–among them M. Janda, and D. Gauhgan–have been involved in a high number of complaints and also civil suits against the university. According to the New Times, “Ferrin clearly was singled out for doing what other ASU cops have been allowed to get away with for years”. How can a promotional process be viewed as “fair” when the individuals receiving promotions have received the same amount of sustained complaints as those employees (Ferrin) the university tried to terminate?
Here is the comment from “Integrity First”, “A commander from a local police agency with over 20 years of experience, a master’s degree, FBI National Academy and other credentials was denied the opportunity to test for the AC position because he does not have “campus” law enforcement experience even though his experience wraps circles around the acting AC. The fix is in for the AC and other selections it appears.” This comment appeared here: https://network23.org/theintegrityreport/2015/03/12/unofficial-but-honest-current-assessment-of-the-arizona-state-university-police-department-state-of-readiness-03-11-2015/#comments
Ironically enough the man who received the job, Patrick Foster, doesn’t have “campus” law enforcement experience. What he does have is experience at MESA PD like the current chief and assistant chief. What someone at the assistant chief level usually has is a master’s degree. Neither the former acting ASUPD Assistant Chief, Michelle Rourke or current ASUPD Assistant Chief Lou Digirolamo have masters degrees, in fact the only degree listed between them is one Associate’s degree from a community college. As far as we know neither one went to the FBI National Academy. Their qualifications are listed here. https://cfo.asu.edu/police
This outsider who was denied the opportunity to test, besides having a good lawsuit, now understands ASUPD processes have no consistency from one to the next. This guarantees an under-qualified command can manipulate the results. In some processes one person applied and was awarded it without issue, there are others where applicants are told several applicants aren’t enough and they will be holding another process. Other processes have three or more people more than eligible to apply and they pick nobody because they don’t want to “reward” people they don’t like.
Afterwards an appointment is made to someone who has no more experience than those who applied or even less than what was initially required. The lies from command are tailored to each situation and never add up because they can’t keep a straight story. Sounds like the criminals we arrest don’t it? For this reason you will never see ASUPD command in front of a news camera. The incompetence of past performances is memorable.
There are promotion processes where some experience is emphasized (college experience driving in circles responding to petty calls), while other experience is ignored (all non-college police experience at respectable agencies responding to emergency traffic). The real reason is the candidates need to be what Pickens called “owned” meaning they were nothing to other police agencies and ASU police was their only avenue to be in the business as a police officer.
These publicly funded processes are meant to choose the best candidates for the position and are meant to be fair and impartial in their selections. At ASUPD nothing could be further from the truth and that is disturbing.
When it comes to who’s running public safety only the most qualified candidates should be selected. Qualifications are not much of a consideration in this highly political and hostile workplace where groups of employees, up to a half dozen at once, quit around the same time.
ASU POLICE operates business as usual under Chief Thompson the way it did under Pickens. Crow clearly has no interest in getting his police department together. Both chiefs became angry when confronted with the issues and not only do they refuse to acknowledge or address problems, they actively managed to worsen them with inflexible out of touch leadership that rewards the same people who created the problems in the first place
Not only has the ASUPD command selected people for supervisor who have spent little time on the job as a patrol officer, they also selected some people who frequently garnered complaints from the public and were reported for doing so in the media. Worse than this they once again passed over people with 10, 20, 30 years of outside police agency experience for those with some “college experience”; their clique friends. The present day commanders were promoted over their more qualified contemporaries years ago. Opinions are one thing, but the resumes don’t lie.
They open these “processes” to outside applicants, but anyone can get turned away regardless of qualifications. The recent ASUPD Assistant chief selection came from Mesa PD, what college policing experience did he have there? What association does he have with the other top two in ASUPD command since they all came from the same department?
After all that what was the reason given to exclude another applicant from testing? Most of the time no outside applicants get selected or even make it to the final round. The appointment of Mike Thompson to chief is a good example of this. The commander testing was the same way. The university puts no value on public safety competency because they want boot licking lapdogs that cower before the all mighty OZ. Professional police management might tell the university administration they’re doing it wrong, and not having that in place puts the public at risk more than ever as the university approaches the 100,000+ student mark.
The last person to be in command from the outside, who didn’t get appointed from Sergeant, was ASUPD Commander Kevin Williams, now University of Michigan-Dearborn’s chief of police and director of public safety. http://www.pressandguide.com/articles/2014/06/23/news/doc53a828952114c794534774.txt
The corrupt existing command immediately circled the wagons against Williams and he couldn’t wait to get out of the Arizona State University Police Department because of the stress command put him through. He was threatened, mocked, and shunned by his fellow command for what end? This sounds more like a bullying story about children on the playground, but it’s true, this is how adult aged men and women manage a police department at the Arizona State University Police Department.
ASUPD command have always been afraid of people more qualified than them, afraid of people they don’t already have under their control, afraid of outside people who think different, and are especially reluctant to tolerate people who adhere to the sort of ethical platform law enforcement as a whole prides itself on. Ask any former employee who is free to speak their mind about the ASUPD management and the responses are relatively the same. A damning response with plenty of supporting information and experience about the complete lack of integrity within the agency management.
This is another ASU public safety corruption story in the works. More light needs to be shed on the culture of corruption, lack of integrity, the non-existent vetting process, cronyism, and anti-American values that appear to be systemic to Arizona State University Police Department and “the New American University” administration who supports it.
In a side note we would like to offer our condolences to the employees at ASUPD who were officially and unofficially accused of being affiliated with the blog or even being the blog administrator. We have received a substantial amount of feedback on the subject, including people who no longer work there, and can tell you to date the number of the accused for this blog is well into the double digits. The investigation and exposure of ASU POLICE mismanagement and their lack of integrity will continue.
