How often do home invasions at gunpoint happen on college campuses when school is out of session?
They don’t happen unless criminals feel no threat in doing so, especially at colleges unless it’s the Arizona State University Crime Spree Zone.
With no staffing, no patrol presence, and completely incompetant management at the ASU Police department it’s going to get worse as word of mouth spreads about the ease of breaking the law and getting away with it more often than not.
BREAKING
ASU police investigate armed robbery at student housing on Mesa Polytechnic campus
Anne Ryman, The Republic azcentral.com
Crime
Arizona State University police are investigating an armed robbery that was reported late Sunday night on the Polytechnic campus in Mesa.
Police say a man, armed with a handgun, forced his way into a residence shortly before midnight at West Desert Village, a student-housing complex on the Mesa campus, and demanded the victim’s laptops and cellphones. The man then fled out the back door.
The suspect is described by police as a white man from 16 to 30 years old. He is about 5 feet, 8 inches tall with a thin build and short blond hair. Police say he wore dark jeans and a green hooded shirt with writing. He had a black bandana over the lower part of his face.
ASU Police say no arrests have been made. Anyone with information is asked to call ASU Police.
The department put out two emergency alerts early Monday morning, the first asking people to avoid the area near 6928 E. Usher Ave., and the second giving the all clear.
Robberies have not been common occurrences on ASU campuses in recent years, according to statistics the university is required to report to the federal government under the Clery Act.
In 2014, the Tempe campus reported three robberies, the West and Downtown Phoenix campuses each reported two robberies and the Polytechnic campus reported one robbery. Clery statistics for 2015 won’t be published until October, and 2016 statistics won’t be available until the following year.
Crimes that occur off campus near universities aren’t generally required to be reported under the Clery Act unless the crime occurs on property the university rents or controls.
Reach the reporter at 602-444-8072 or anne.ryman@arizonarepublic.com.
Recently the Arizona State University Police Department Command were Embarrassed Internationally During the IACLEA 2016 Conference. Iaclea 2016 Conference
ASUPD shouldn’t be a part of IACLEA. Look at what the IACLEA’s own president said about police officer staffing! Video on the facts
The dastardly culprits decided to send this email explaining how they came by the information. Perhaps they are worried about ASUPD reaching out to their overtime cronies at AZDPS to do another CRIMINAL investigation on randomly picked ASU Police Employees. Whatever the case we thoroughly enjoyed their creation BRAVO!
Keep up the good work!
*After seeing the news conference with the former officers in the lawsuit and especially the details of the following video we decided to update this post. Thank you to the contributors.
In another attempt to gather the scoop on what it’s employees are saying in private, the buffoons of the Arizona State University Police command installed a SECRET SPY CAMERA in the first floor break room that has an attached bike room. This break room has a refrigerator, microwave, sink, coffee maker, water cooler and represents an area where employees once felt free to talk. Now they are being spied on like the criminals who aren’t getting caught should be.
Sorry public, the university police are too busy spying on each other to maintain an Orwellian nightmare workplace, we don’t have the time, resources, or even more…the staffing to catch your criminals. As usual officers and civilian staff are leaving much faster than they can be replaced. It’s a great place to work!
For a boss to do this to an employee there’s a special sense of entitlement, deep disrespect, disregard, and complete lack of professionalism. Furthermore it’s considered ILLEGAL, but the command at ASUPD wouldn’t know that because they’re idiots without a clue operating outside the law.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the people holding leadership positions at the Arizona State University Police Department. The department is still…
ON A 5 YEAR 24 HOUR SHUFFLE STAFF AROUND FROM ONE CAMPUS TO ANOTHER ROUTINE TO HAVE SOME BOOTS ON THE GROUND
How many years has this been going on? This is the primary job for ASU Police command to successfully hire and retain staffing and they fail miserably year after year…
Chief Michael L. Thompson, you mean to tell the public, the Arizona State University community, that you can’t manage the few officers at the department with 1 CHIEF, 2 ASSISTANT CHIEFS, 5 COMMANDERS, 20 SERGEANTS, 5 CORPORALS so now you NEED LIEUTENANTS?
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.
Prominent ASU scientist sues university and President Michael Crow, alleging retaliation
Deirdre Meldrum alleges university officials staged an after-hours raid to take equipment from her lab; ASU administrators say her claims are a diversion to mask a decline in her research funding.
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.
Photos: ASU Biodesign Institute
ASU’s Biodesign Institute on campus in Tempe is a major hub for research on the Tempe campus. Tom Tingle/The Republic
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.”
Recruited as ‘visionary’
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.
Pattern of abuse?
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.
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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.
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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.
The money trail
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.
‘Shell game’ alleged
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?
Lousy incompetent leadership that kills morale and drives employees straight out the door. How ironic that Arizona State University Police Department is hosting:
The 2016 Executive Development Institute (EDI)is sponsored by IACLEA (The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators). This year 42 executives, including three members of the Arizona State University Police Department, will participate in workshops March 7-10.
The 42 college police chiefs attending should pay close attention to those hosting the event because they are a wonderful example of what not to do.
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.
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
HOSTILITY TO SUBORDINATES: ASU Police Command makes no secret of its contempt for their own employees. Stories about what they are currently doing to employees, what they’ve done to employees just never die. The truth comes out and employees see the alarming lack of integrity within its leadership and their handpicked successors.
CORRUPT & EXCESSIVE INTERNAL AFFAIR INVESTIGATIONS: ASU Police Command has a well-known record of conducting themselves without any shred of integrity whatsoever. They make up Internal Affair Investigations without merit and target employees they don’t like while looking the other way for the ones they favor. This is the well-known retention program to cheaply keep employees from being able to move on with a career in law enforcement. ASU Police conducts more “I.A’s” per employee than any police department in Arizona.
CRONYISM WITH UNQUALIFIED PROMOTIONS: Promotions for ASU Police are already spoken for. ASUPD command has continually rewarded unqualified candidates for promotion over more qualified competition. It’s common for them to restrict who can test for positions, change the rules during the process, and redo a process if they don’t like who’s applying. We’ve discovered that ASU Command accepted invitations for barbecues/poker playing at the Fuchtman household shortly before appointing supervisor novice Katie Fuchtman to Sergeant over much more qualified candidates. Resumes are routinely ignored in promotion processes in favor of subjective oral boards where people can be handpicked.
NO RAISES FOR YEARS AT A TIME: As an ASU Police Officer you will watch the salary of your counterparts at other departments soar while yours remains stagnant for 5+ years, their overtime compared to your COMP time is a huge bump, plus all the bonuses for STEP increases, training bonuses, makes it a no brainer that you need to leave ASUPD to succeed.
CORRUPT EVALUATION PROCESSES: All ASU Police employees get evaluations. The “clique” allows one another to write their own evaluations and scores with 4 being low and most receiving 5 or higher. Most ASUPD employees receive the standard 3 as a rule. This allows command to flood the salaries of their friends with money that comes for any raise, but also makes them appear to be a better employee than others not favored, but who work harder and are more qualified for higher scores.
NO OPPORTUNITES & NO TRAINING: Just like promotions, specialty positions and training are already spoken for. Police officers from real police departments get opportunities for further training in all aspects of law enforcement without the political garbage of ASUPD. After 3 years a police officer at a real police department can expect an opening in any one of many specialty positions and opportunities for more training than you have time for. Remember that training makes you more marketable to other police departments. With ASUPD running short of officers 100% of the time for years that’s a real fear.
NO SUPPORT FOR THEIR OWN POLICE OFFICERS: Only the friends of ASUPD command, the clique, receive any support when their people within the department come under public scrutiny. Besides getting the support of command you will find these people are the ones receiving the largest amount of public complaints because they are empowered to be rude, violate civil rights, and collect public complaints without any recourse. All complaints will be found unfounded regardless of evidence. The people not favored by command habitually do not get public complaints, but are buried by internally generated complaints IA’s against them.
NO SAFETY WITH NO STAFFING: ASU Command won’t be out on calls with you and neither will their bosses, so they will never understand when you are grossly outnumbered on a call and you have little or no backup. If a protest or sport crowd is too aggressive and too large or any other priority event should happen it’s time to call Tempe, Mesa, Phoenix, Glendale, and beg for help if they’re not too busy. Great public safety plan.
TOXIC WORKPLACE STRESS: ASU Command systematically creates an environment so full of stress for its employees that morale has always been low unless you’re new. The longer you remain in the department the more you will understand all the above issues to be entirely true. You will spend 40 or more hours a week at a place you will increasingly dislike because of the gross mismanagement of the department by corrupt officials throughout the command structure whose only care is their own career.
NO REDRESS FOR GRIEVANCES: ASU Command identifies anyone who has a problem with their supervisor or anything their supervisor does as a problem. You become the problem for professionally attempting to address an issue. This effectively creates a US & THEM mentality that the command at ASUPD fully believes in without exception. It was that way under Chief John Pickens and his band of bobble-head idiots and it remains that way under the equally unimaginative, think inside the box, Chief Michael Thompson and the band of bobble-head idiots he inherited from Pickens. You become the problem for professionally attempting to address an issue. This effectively creates a US & THEM mentality that the command at ASUPD fully believes in without exception. It was that way under Chief John Pickens and his band of bobble-head idiots and it remains that way under the equally unimaginative, think inside the box, Chief Michael Thompson and the band of bobble-head idiots he inherited from Pickens.
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.
It was brought to our attention that ASU Police Command is now branding itself in the same light of those who make sacrifices in the line of duty. Of all the words that could be used to describe policing at the Arizona State University Police Department, especially the activities of the ASU Police Command, the word “SACRIFICE” is the last word that comes to mind. Consider this a mandatory online refresher course on the meaning of SACRIFICE.
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.
Merry Christmas to all of those men and women in uniform, police and military,
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 itwhen 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 itwhen 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 itwhen 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 itwhen you have more supervisors on shifts than working, patrolling police officers the same way Pickens mismanaged the department?
How tight is itwhen 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 itreally 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 itwhen 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.
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)
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 Thompsonsays 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.
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.
One exposed lie quickly follows another as one more news story breaks about the Arizona State University Police department’s lack of readiness. On the night of another violent sexual assault ASUPD was understaffed as usual. We are still short the 153 sworn we are supposed to have for all shifts and all campuses. Even if we had enough staffing for patrol, nights in Tempe would still be conducting continuous traffic stops on Tempe city streets far from the student populations on campus. They unwittingly set the stage and create the opportunity for crime on a unpatrolled campus with nobody watching the hen house.
This is what happens when your patrol and supervisors have no worthwhile experience, set their own random missions and goals, and could care less what happens on campus unless they’re called to it. This is what happens when your leadership doesn’t recognize harmful trends and ignores the problems they are aware of year after year.
We certainly have more than enough when it comes to supervisor staffing. Five commanders for four campuses, never at those campuses, who are always in Tempe on days with none on nights, 17 sergeants and counting, virtually the same upper command structure of an entire city police department outnumbering the officers on patrol at any given time.
How is this rational when we are struggling to keep boots on the ground to patrol the university? It’s not, but it’s the same dumb “insulate oneself through over-mangement” strategy Pickens did at his former university before getting the boot there.
Do you think staffing will get better soon? Doubtful. It hasn’t improved under the 14 years of former chief John Pickens so-called leadership and has shown little progress under Thompson who seems to be doing the same thing expecting different results. The definition of insanity is the business management model here.
As officers lateral out, part of another ignored yearly trend, these numbers will predictably dip dangerously low again. Why does this happen? Maybe a professional group of people sworn to tell the truth don’t care to work for an organization that continues to deny the truth year after year?Maybe the Kevin Salcido types with their “they won’t be missed” attitudes were one too many and people that risk their lives need some respect and recognition for what they do. The reasons are as legion as the former employees of ASUPD.
ABC15 published this article, our notations are highlighted and underlined.
Does Arizona State University have enough police officers when it comes to the number of students on campus?
The complex houses students from the School of Sustainability Residential Community and the School of Letters and Sciences Residential College.
According to ASU, the University’s police department was understaffed that night.
ASU Records released these numbers:
“ASU Police had 4 police officers (minimum required number of officers is 7) and 2 police sergeants (minimum required number of sergeants is 1) working patrol. Two officers called in sick.”
The information was the number of police officers and sergeants working that night for all of ASU’s campuses, including Tempe and downtown Phoenix. (On the night of the assault ASU had 4 officers for 4 campuses, does that sound safe to you?) No police officer wants to call another agency for backup because they routinely don’t have any, that practice is dangerous and prone to liability.)
This data came months after ABC15 submitted a request for of the information from the University.
It also shows discrepancies with what the University originally told ABC15 when we first reported on the story.
On September 25, 2014,an ASU Spokesperson said “I can tell you now that the police department was at normal staffing levels on the night in question.”
However, that information isn’t true, according to new information released this week.
A spokesman for the University declined our request for an interview, but released a statement.
“Student safety is a top priority at ASU. Since June of last year, the number of sworn ASU police officers has increased from 74 to 89. The ASU Police Department determines the minimum staffing levels of all campuses. Our police force also uses technological tools to provide the securest environment and most expedited response possible, including direct link to our dispatch center through police call boxes located throughout campus and a smart phone application to report criminal activity. We also have agreements in place with neighboring police departments to provide extra support if needed.”
ASU’s Senior Director for Media Relations Mark Johnson said an officer responded to the alleged assault within six minutes of being dispatched.
The article ends.
We are still short the 153 sworn we are supposed to have for all shifts and all campuses.
There are recognized standards for ratios of students to police officers, but the current ASU administration ignores the standard to the detriment of student safety.
How ASU’s ratio of sworn officers stacks up to enrollment:
ASU: 1.1 per 1,000 students.
UA: 1.6 per 1,000 students.
U.S. Department of Justice survey: 2.1 per 1,000 students at public colleges and 1.5 per 1,000 for public schools with enrollments of more than 15,000.
Eric Chin, Purdue University Police Department survey in December 2013 of Big Ten Conference schools: Highest ratio was Northwestern University at 2.9 per 1,000. Lowest was Ohio State at .85 per 1,000.
ASU’s ratio excludes 13,000 students who only take classes online and don’t come to campuses.
As for the lack of staffing on ASU’s four campuses, you might recall in January 2014, we posted a link to a Department of Justice study that analyzed staffing at university/college campuses. In the post, we illustrated how grossly understaffed ASUPD in comparison to the student populous. ABC15 recently revisited this issue, and also asked ASU officials to comment on the low staffing numbers for the PD. In lieu of agreeing to an on-camera interview, the university released a vague “statement”, and interim Assistant Chief Michele Rourke released the staffing numbers to ABC15.
What “Assistant Chief” Rourke failed to mention, however, is how ASUPD doesn’t really have 78 “patrol officers” because the majority of the people in the aforementioned number are assigned to duties OTHER THAN patrol!
The 78 officers that work patrol incorporates: 7 officers in training who are NOT able to work as solo units; 3 chiefs, 5 commanders, 17 sergeants, a K9 handler, 3 detectives, a special events officer, and a crime prevention officer…NONE of which engage in regular, routine patrol duties as one of the primary functions of their jobs! The vast majority of these positions are either supervisory in nature or incorporate desk work for the majority of the work day, so they aren’t “on patrol”.
When you subtract the new officers, administrators, supervisors, and people assigned to other duties, you’re left with about 40 officers to patrol 4 campuses twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. That number also doesn’t account for officers who may be out on sick leave, vacation, training, comp time, etc.
Michelle Rourke, a spokeswoman for ASU gave the following data for patrol officers at ASU:
July 2014 – total sworn: 78 (We are still short the 153 sworn we are supposed to have for all shifts and all campuses.)
January 2014 – total sworn: 74
July 2013 – total sworn: 66
July 2012 –total sworn: 65
The US Department of Justice has published statistics which analyze a myriad of variables that are applicable to university/college police departments.
This include demographics of sworn officer to student ratio for a several population sizes of universities/colleges. According to page 3 of the report:
Campuses using sworn officers employed on average 2.3 full-time officers per 1,000 students. Private campuses averaged 3 sworn officers per 1,000 students compared to 2.1 sworn officers per 1,000 students on public campuses.
ASU currently has approximately 73,000 students enrolled on all four of its campuses. If ASU followed the national average of employing 2.1 sworn officers per 1,000 students, the department should employ 153 sworn employees. To put this number into perspective, ASUPD currently has 72 sworn employees (which includes the Chief, Assistant Chiefs, and several Commanders, none of which work patrol. This number also incorporates employees who are in the academy/being hired who should NOT be counted in the “sworn employee” total).*This information was published January of last year and has changed slightly since then.
Is ASU Police Department understaffed: New information released to ABC15 on reported sexual assault.
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.
