Tag Archives: ABOR

Nov 10 2013
5 Comments
General

ASUPD’s temporary solution to staffing issues? Let the support service officers handle it!

Many officers have been unhappy lately with the departments’ slow, knee jerk reaction to the staffing crisis which is crippling police services at all four campuses.

The first solution was to ignore all the unhappy officers who were getting burnt out from the lack of officer staffing at ASUPD. Next, the solution to fixing the staffing problem was to try and hire every individual with a pulse who was referred by a current ASU employee. After these two plans failed miserably, ASUPD decided to now recall the support services officers to fill the gaps in the schedule. WHAT!

Instead of having your extraneous “specialty” assignments help out patrol (K9, the two officers assigned to Tempe Bike Patrol, the detective assigned to work with TPD, the Sergeant’s over various desk positions), you have the few detectives you DO have respond to calls “when patrol gets backed up”. How is that effective? Another idea…how about Command staff start shagging calls and running traffic?

 

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Nov 08 2013
4 Comments
General

Editiorial: What ASUPD should learn about bullying from Miami Dolphins’ Jonathan Martin.

After the overwhelming response we received from our post on bullying in the workplace (titled, “The Bully at Work: how many apply to you current/former ASUPD employees?), we decided to follow it up with secondary post regarding workplace bullying, inspired by the Miami Dolphins’ offensive tackle Jonathan Martin.

As some of you may be aware, very recently Martin, a 24-year old rookie, quit the Miami Dolphins and checked himself into a South Florida hospital for treatment for emotional distress. According to the article, “the specific treatment of Martin’s emotional condition was not disclosed, but sources say it was related to his belief that he had been targeted during a sustained level of harassment from teammates, including suspended guard Richie Incognito”

Martin’s attorney stated that the issue is Martin’s treatment by his teammates. Martin endured harassment that went far beyond the traditional locker room hazing; he attempted to befriend the same teammates who subjected him to the abuse with the hope that doing so would end the harassment. This is a textbook reaction of victims of bullying.

So what does this have to do with ASUPD?

According to Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie (Authors of the book The Bully at Work),

Bullying in the workplace can have significant mental and physical impacts.What makes it psychological is bullying’s impact on the person’s mental health and sense of well-being. The personalized, focused nature of the assault destabilizes and disassembles the target’s identity, ego strength, and ability to rebound from the assaults. The longer the exposure to stressors like bullying, the more severe the psychological impact. When stress goes unabated, it compromises both a target’s physical and mental health. :

Physical health problems from stress include:

  • Cardiovascular Problems: Hypertension (60%) to Strokes, Heart Attacks
  •  Adverse Neurological Changes: Neurotransmitter Disruption, Hippocampus Shrinkage
  • Immunological Impairment: More frequent infections of greater severity
  • Fibromyalgia (21%), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (33%)

Some physical indications of the above stress might include:

  • Nausea
  • Tremors of the Lips, Hands, Etc.
  •  Feeling Uncoordinated
  • Chills
  • Profuse Sweating
  • Rapid Heartbeat/Breathing
  • Elevated Blood Pressure
  • Chest Pain
  • Uncontrollable Crying
  •  Headaches

Psychological-Emotional Injuries

  • Debilitating Anxiety (80%)
  •  Panic Attacks (52%)
  • Clinical Depression: new to person or exacerbated condition previously controlled (49%)
  • Post-traumatic Stress (PTSD) from deliberate human-inflicted abuse (30%)
  • Shame (the desired result of humiliating tactics by the bully) – sense of deserving a bad fate
  • Guilt (for having “allowed” the bully to control you)
  • Overwhelming sense of Injustice (Equity – the unfairness of targeting you who works so hard; Procedural – the inadequacy of the employer’s response to your complaint)

(Note: All of these ailments caused by stress could explain a large surge in the usage of sick/vacation time currently transpiring)

Even more shocking? In the WBI 2012-D Study, 29% of bullied targets considered suicide and 16% had a plan. According to Police Chief Magazine, Various sources report 300 completed police suicides annually; other sources report that a law enforcement officer (LEO) is more likely to die by suicide than by homicide. Why? One reason cited is that one factor may be conflict with the police administration; more specifically, some officers may choose suicide to escape from an intolerable or unbearable situation.

How many times have we seen those in the department physically suffering from being bullied? We’ve witnessed a petite female officer lose 10 pounds from stress; we’ve seen several other coworkers suffering from high blood pressure, ulcers, insomnia, migraines REGULARLY due to unnecessary stress from certain members of ASUPD’s “clique”. We’ve also witnessed many good officers quit due to the unnecessary stress which caused the officers’ personal lives to be affected.

Law enforcement is stressful enough. As law enforcement professionals, we should be supporting each other, not constantly seeking ways to destroy each others’ personal and professional lives as some sort of sick trophy. Yes, we’re tough cops, but we’re also human beings first and foremost. If bullying can affect a strong, young (and well-paid!) professional football player to the point of quitting his profession, it can affect ANY of us.

ASUPD has an obligation–from a moral and a legal standpoint–to deal with the bullying problem (caused by a select group of people) it has previously refused even existed. If it continues to fester, what is going to prevent a  situation like Jonathan Martin (or worse!) from happening at ASUPD?

 

 

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Nov 08 2013
3 Comments
General

K9 Disney: another ASU money pit!

Came across this article today about ASU’s shining star: K9 Disney!! According to the article, K9 Disney is SUCH a valuable asset….working football games, special events…and training several hours a day also!

In reality, K9 Disney has been nothing but a huge money pit, taking money away from things the department actually NEEDS (like more officers, new equipment/vehicles, etc). The dog itself was provided by funding through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; however, all her incidental expenses have added up bigtime.

First, ASUPD paid for Det. Parker Dunwoody to go through 10 weeks of k9 handling school. Dunwoody gets a lot of OT and stipends for “training” and taking care of his dog (apparently, wandering around Sun Devil Stadium all day and making your own schedule constitutes “training”?). Also, since the first K9 vehicle Disney had wasn’t good enough, ASUPD recently purchased a brand new, pimped out K9 vehicle! Let’s not forget K9 Disney’s “official” trading cards too, paid for by ASUPD.

The absolute kicker to this situation is that K9 Disney spends most of her time WORKING AT EVENTS THAT AREN’T EVEN ASU RELATED!!! For example, according to this State Press article, K9 Disney Disney”assisted other agencies around the valley, including the Salt River Police and Tempe Police to search for missing firearms and possible bombs” and  “made appearances at the 2011 Super Bowl game in Dallas and the U.S. Open in California. Disney also assisted in the aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting in Tucson. ” Or what about competing in the Desert Dog Regional Police K9 Trials in 2012?

She isn’t available to ASU officer call-outs for assistance, but occasionally works special events on campus…that is when her handler stops reading all the google alerts put out by this blog! (“internet police” isn’t an ACTUAL job!).

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Nov 05 2013
6 Comments
General

Yikes…ASUPD gets name dropped on thedirty.com.

….and no, it wasn’t us; someone emailed us and brought the link to our attention. Out of respect for the officer (who actually didn’t do anything wrong), we won’t post the link. Looks like some angry ex-girlfriend decided to make a post to put the entire department on blast. Ouch!

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Nov 04 2013
6 Comments
General

Firearms proficieny at ASUPD: why it’s a critical issue the Chief isn’t addressing.

One major issue we here at THR haven’t been able to address yet has been firearms proficiency; partially because of the sheer magnitude and depth of the issue, and partially due to the fact that so much of the problems with firearms training have been shrouded in so much secrecy.

There are laws/policies in place which very clearly state firearms qualification requirements.

Let’s do a quick recap of what ASUPD claims its standards are. According to ASUPD’s policy manual:

 An Officer must:

  • Qualify at scheduled range sessions.
    • If the Officer fails on the first attempt, he or she will obtain immediate training from the Rangemaster, or designee, before making the second attempt.

A Rangemaster must, for any Officer who fails to qualify during the initial range session:

  • Complete a memorandum and provide copies to the Officer, the Officer’s supervisor, and the Officer’s Commander.
  • Indicate on the form that the first 30 days have been forfeited if this is the second required course during the calendar year on which the Officer has failed during the initial range session.
  • Schedule remedial training of up to eight hours and a re-qualification shoot.

The Officer’s Commander:

  • Reassign the Officer to an administrative position for up to 30 work days pending qualification.
  • Inform the Officer that he or she is not to carry any firearm in a law enforcement capacity, is not eligible for overtime duty, and is not to perform any off-duty work in a law enforcement capacity for the duration of the administrative assignment.

 Officer fails to qualify, and he or she has not previously failed in another course:

  • Instruct the Officer to remain on administrative duty pending qualification for up to 60 work days from date of the original failure to qualify.
  • Provide the Officer with a second remedial training session of up to eight hours and a qualification shoot.

 If he or she has previously failed in another course that year or has failed to qualify again after the attempt as noted above:

  • Forward a request for disciplinary action to the Chief of Police through the chain of command.
  • The Chief of Police may impose suitable disciplinary action, most often termination for failure to maintain skills necessary to perform an essential job function.
  • Probationary Officers will always be terminated for failure to qualify within the allotted time.
  • Disciplinary actions other than termination will only be considered, if there are overwhelming mitigating circumstances affecting the failure to qualify.

First of all, WHY DO WE HAVE OFFICERS STRUGGLING TO QUALIFY WHEN WE HAVE 7+ RANGE “INSTRUCTORS”?! That’s about 10 officers to every ONE instructor (with such low numbers, the officer to instructor ratio is even lower). You’re such an “elite” bunch of instructors, so PROVE IT. Being a decent firearms instructor is measured by how many officers you can get to shoot well consistently, NOT how many AR-15s you have or how many classes you’ve taken, or how well you can shoot.

Secondly, there is a great disparity in how people are treated if they have problems qualifying. There are several people who consistently fail qualification and aren’t assigned to desk duty, but instead allowed to work patrol because of staffing problems (THIS IS A HUGE SAFETY ISSUE!!! WHY IS THIS EVEN HAPPENING!?) Then are others who get put on admin leave and are threatened with the loss of their job while receiving virtually NO significant amount of training. 

Thirdly, why is no one above the rank of Sergeant required to qualify in front of others at Gila River, but instead have their peers evaluate them at Tempe PD’s air conditioned range? This includes range instructors too! They are all miraculously expert shooters.

How can the Chief look at these issues and think this system has any sort of integrity, is safe, and seems to be working? When you have people consistently failing to qualify, maybe as a leader you should look at the systemic issue, instead of dismissing it on an individual level.

Maybe instill confidence in your officers through adequate training instead of holding their jobs over their heads every time they head to the range?! That would be a good place to start.

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Nov 04 2013
4 Comments
General

Halloween DUI Task Force…ASU doesn’t participate…again.

From thestatepress.com:

Tempe Police’s Halloween DUI task force to keep sharp eye on drinking, driving

Amid all the costume parties, bar hops and trick-or-treating Halloween has to offer, area police departments will be keeping a sharp eye on the public.

Tempe Police has strictly enforced out-of-control parties and alcohol-related crimes this year, with operations such as Safe and Sober at the beginning of the semester netting hundreds of arrests around Tempe for people driving under the influence.

This Halloween weekend will likely stay the course.

Tempe Police Public Information Officer Molly Enright said the department will be increasing patrol operations looking for DUIs and alcohol-related crimes.

“We have people celebrating, (and) we want them to come to Tempe and have a great time, but the statistics also demonstrate that impaired driving significantly rises during those times,” she said.

Enright said the department received a grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to increase the number of officers on the street and to bring in help from other departments around the Valley.

“Tempe Police is the lead agency, and we requested our partners to come in as we always do,” Enright said. “We’ll be multiagency … Mesa Police, Scottsdale Police and the (Department of Public Safety) will be assisting us.”

The department will have a command post set up at the Tempe Fire Training Facility on East University Drive from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. starting Thursday.

There, officers will take and process those arrested during the campaign, Enright said.

“Where we set up the command post is where we can do our processing,” she said. “It’s also a place for the officers to brief up prior to the task force starting.”

As with years past, Enright said the downtown area of Tempe is sure to be busy over the weekend.

“Typically there are about 10,000 people estimated to come down into the downtown area on Halloween,” she said.

Enright stressed that the operation is not just centered on the common hotspots of Tempe such as Mill Avenue but is a citywide effort.

“Our officers will be mobile. There will be officers in patrol vehicles, officers on bikes, mounted in the downtown area and then motor officers,” Enright said. “So you’ll see high visibility, especially in terms of the motorcycle officers as well as the patrol officers across the city.”

Enright said because this year’s Halloween falls on a Thursday, Tempe Police will continue DUI task force operations through Nov. 2.

“Any of the holidays which land on or around a weekend, the celebrations typically run through that weekend,” she said. “So Halloween being Thursday, people will be celebrating Thursday, Friday and Saturday as well.”

ASU Police will also be involved in increased patrols.

Assistant Police Chief Michael Thompson said the department will staff two additional officers on Halloween night, then on Friday and Saturday ASU officers will assist in Tempe Police’s party patrols.

“We’re increasing patrols,” Thompson said. “They will be out in the city of Tempe, around the University and assisting Tempe (Police).”

To help people stay safe, there are many different services available to students to help them avoid drinking and driving.

Metro Light Rail service will continue to run its normal schedule on Halloween.

Local taxi company Discount Cab also offers a free ride back program for people who have had too much to drink, spokeswoman Janelle Brannock said.

People can call the company for a ride home or to a friend’s house, the company gives them a redemption code and then the company will return them to their cars the next morning for free, she said.

“One of our Discount Cabs will drive you home safely, you pay for that ride,” Brannock said. “Then when you call to get your ride back to your car or wherever you left it. … You would give the dispatch number that code that was given to you, and you’d get the ride back to your car absolutely free.”

Enright said the DUI task force operation aims to keep the public safe during a time where there are enormous amounts of people walking around the streets of Tempe.

She said other ways to stay safe are to designate drivers, plan ahead and program taxi company numbers into cell phones ahead of time.

“A lot of families are trick-or-treating, people are excited (and) they’re out and about,” Enright said. “The main focus of this is for some additional resources … and we ask for pedestrians and bicyclists to watch out for cars.”

A few interesting points we’d like to make:

1.     Notice how Tempe PD mentions how THEY have been enforcing alcohol crimes, NOT ASUPD.

2.     Tempe PD is the lead agency in the DUI taskforce; Mesa, Scottsdale, and DPS are also participating. Noticeably absent? ASUPD.

3.     ASUPD will staff an additional TWO officers, which still leaves them critically understaffed and unable to respond to other calls if something major happens.

4.     ASU assigning officers to Tempe PD’s “party patrols” is nothing more than a façade; ASU wants the student and parent community to believe they’re proactively working “in partnership” with Tempe PD, when in reality, ASUPD is trying to take credit for work done by Tempe PD.

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Oct 29 2013
11 Comments
General, training issues

ASUPD’s shoddy rape investigation costs ASU several million dollars.

This just further highlight’s ASUPD’s mistreatment of women. An old article, but worth mentioning:

A former Arizona State student claims that “ASU refused to authorize either a drug screen [or] rape kit for DNA analysis” and “obstructed and shut down the investigation” after she was drugged and sodomized at a Sigma Chi fraternity party. She claims campus police did not interview a single Sigma Chi member, blamed her for “having been forcibly sodomized,” and did it all “to make ASU appear safer than it was.”
   The woman claims that ASU police officers conducted a shoddy, halfhearted investigation to minimize the university’s liability. The woman sued the Arizona Board of Regents in Maricopa County Court, claiming the university violated Title IX by failing to fully investigate her claims.
She claims that ASU knew of “the risk of severe sexual harassment, including sexual assault, of female students at the Sigma Chi house on its campus,” but that ASU sought to use “pressure or policy to minimize sexual assault reports to make ASU appear safer than it was.”
The plaintiff, a former member of Pi Beta Phi sorority, says she went to a toga party thrown by members of Sigma Chi, where she was given alcohol. She was 19 at the time. At the party, she says, Matt Potter, a Sigma Chi member, gave her a drink “that had been spiked with a drug designed to incapacitate her and impair her memory.” She says her memory of the night was impaired by the drink, and that she woke up the next day at the Sigma Chi house with severe rectal pain, without her purse and some of her clothing.
She says two friends and the president of the ASU Panhellenic Council took her to Tempe St. Luke’s Hospital, where a sexual assault examination determined that she had been “sodomized with significant ‘anal injury’ with rectal and vaginal pain, bloody stool, and exposure to bodily fluids.”
She says that despite her injuries and a request from the emergency room physician, ASU police officers refused to authorize a rape kit, drug screen, or a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) examination. She says the officers blamed her for “having been forcibly sodomized.”
She claims that “the reason [ASU] Officer Janda would not conduct a proper investigation of [her] sodomy and sexual assault because she had consumed alcoholic beverages before the assault, was a pretext to minimize ASU’s liability.”
After she was released from the hospital, she says, her sister drove her to Tucson, where she was examined by a physician at Northwest Medical Center Hospital and was found to be a “crime victim” of “sexual assault.” By that time, she says, it was too late to perform a drug screen or rape kit.

ASU’s Office of Student Life, Judicial Affairs interviewed her once, and interviewed only one of her sorority sisters for its investigation, she says. “No Sigma Chi members were ever questioned,” and ASU closed the investigation less than 2 months after the rape, according to the 21-page complaint.”ASU has in recent years systematically and severely underreported sexual assault reports,” the complaint states. “For 2008, ASU reported and posted only four forcible sexual assault reports in its 2009 Annual Security Reports, despite, on information and belief, having received at least several dozen reports. On information and belief, the motivations of ASU police for refusing to investigate [the plaintiff’s] rape and sodomy included ASU’s pressure or policy to minimize sexual assault reports to make ASU appear safer than it was.”
ASU is required by the Clery Act “to report to the U.S. Department of Education, and to post publicly, all reports of sexual assaults made to campus police or its Judicial Affairs or other personnel,” according to the complaint. But ASU never reported her rape and sodomy in its Annual Security Report, she says. And she says the school took no action against Gallagher or Potter or Sigma

This lawsuit alone cause ASU several million dollars due to horrible policies and horrible policing. Yet this officer is still working at ASU and is allowed to train new officers?!

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Oct 29 2013
5 Comments
CLERY, General

Loopholes in Clery Act Reporting: How ASU can skew its crime statistics!

Lengthy but good read from publicintergrity.org, in regard to campus police department’s abilities to skew sexual assault data through Clery Act loopholes.

The Clery Act requires some 7,500 colleges and universities — nearly 4,000 of which are four-year public and private institutions — to disclose statistics about crime on or near their campuses in annual security reports.

Many provisions have evolved since the law passed 19 years ago, but what hasn’t changed is Clery’s requirement that schools poll a wide range of “campus security authorities” when gathering data. That designation includes a broad array of campus programs, departments, and centers, such as student health centers, women’s centers, and even counseling centers. The designation also applies to officials who supervise students — deans, coaches, housing directors, judicial affairs officers, to name a few.

In theory, those stipulations should make for comprehensive crime reporting.

But the data gathering isn’t always meticulous. In fact, a 2002 study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice found that “only 36.5 percent of schools reported crime statistics in a manner that was fully consistent with the Clery Act.” A Center examination of 10 years worth of complaints filed against institutions under Clery shows that the most common problem is that schools are not properly collecting data. Some submit only reports from law-enforcement officials. In August 2004, Yale University became the subject of a complaint after it was discovered to be doing just that. Five years later, the U.S. Department of Education has yet to finish its review; a department spokesperson declined to comment on the pending inquiry.

Other schools submit inaccurate sexual assault statistics — in some cases inadvertently; in others cases, intentionally. Nearly half of the 25 Clery complaint investigations conducted by the Education Department over the past decade determined that schools were omitting sexual offenses collected by some sources or failing to report them at all. In October 2007, the department fined LaSalle University, in Philadelphia, $110,000 for not reporting 28 crimes, including a small number of sexual assaults.

There’s also been misclassification of sexual assaults. Schools can wrongly categorize reports of acquaintance rape or fondling as “non-forcible” sexual offenses — a definition that should only apply to incest and statutory rape. Five of the 25 Clery audits found schools were miscoding forcible rapes as non-forcible instead. In June 2008, Eastern Michigan University agreed to pay the department $350,000 — the largest Clery fine ever — for a host of violations, including miscoding rapes.

Another limitation of the Clery Act: it counts only those crimes occurring on or near campuses, and in school-affiliated buildings like fraternity houses. The initial thinking behind this narrow geographic focus was that off-campus crimes would inevitably be documented by local police, experts say. But that means that Clery statistics don’t include such settings as off-campus apartments, where most campus-related rapes are believed to take place. Last year, Jacqui Pequignot, who heads the victim advocate program at Florida State, recorded just nine sexual offenses on or near campus, as compared to 48 off campus. Pequignot, who estimates that 36,000 of FSU’s 42,000 students live in apartments more than a block from the university, notes that critics often suspect misreporting whenever they don’t see huge numbers of campus sexual assaults. “But sometimes,” she says, “it’s really just about the fact that the numbers are greater off campus.”

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Oct 29 2013
5 Comments
Department morale, General, Staffing issues

“The Bully at Work”; how many of these apply to all you current/former ASUPD employees?

“The Bully at Work” is a pretty informative book by Dr’s Gary and Ruth Namie. In it, they discuss what workplace bullying is, why it occurs, why bullies pick their targets, and how to deal with bullies at work.

To all the current and former ASU Police employees out there, read some of these excerpts and see if they apply to you; for those admin outside of the department, think about how issues like these are affecting employee productivity and retention:

Bullying at Work

  • Bullying at work is repeated, health-harming mistreatment of a person by one or more workers that takes the form of verbal abuse; conduct or behaviors that are threatening, intimidating, or humiliating; sabotage that prevents the work from getting done; or some combination of the three.  Perpetrators are bullies; those on the receiving end are Targets.
  • It is psychological violence – sublethal and nonphysical – a mix of verbal and strategic assaults to prevent the Target from performing work well.
  • The bully puts her or his personal agenda of controlling another human being above the needs of the employing organization.
  • In 62 percent of cases, when employers are made aware of bullying, they escalate the problem for the Target or simply do nothing. 
  • Workplace bullying is a serious threat to:  (18-19)
    • Freedom from fear and trauma
    • Employee health and safety
    • Civil rights in the workplace
    • Dignity at work
    • Personal self-respect
    • Family cohesion and stability
    • Work team morale and productivity
    • Employment practices liability
    • Retention of skilled employees
    • Employer reputation

Understanding Bullies

    • Bullies can be categorized, but individuals who choose to bully can adopt any tactic at any time to accomplish their goal.   [One of these is] The Constant Critic.
      • Operates behind closed doors so that later she or he can deny what was said or done to you.  Extremely negative.  Nitpicker.  Perfectionist.  Whiner.  Complainer.  Faultfinder.  Liar.  Loved by senior management because of his ability to “get those people to produce.”
      • Constant haranguing about the Target’s “incompetence”
      • Demands eye contact when he speaks but deliberately avoids eye contact when the Target speaks
      • Accuses Target of wrongdoing, blames Target for fabricated errors
      • Makes unreasonable demands for work with impossible deadlines, applies disproportionate pressure, expects perfection 
      • Excessively or harshly criticizes Target’s work or abilities 
      • Most bullies work to make themselves well-connected to senior management, executives, or owners.  While Targets focus on prideful work, bullies are busy kissing up to the big bosses. 
      • They have allies – we call them executive sponsors – willing to block punishment for malicious behavior if they are ever exposed.  The big bosses think the bullies can do no wrong.  Targets have a hard time being believed for this reason. 

      Does this sound familiar?!

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Oct 29 2013
6 Comments
General, Staffing issues

Crime down across campus? Nah, just less cops.

Found this gem of an article from The State Press:

Crime is down across ASU campus, police said after releasing crime statistics for 2012.

The report shows a 7.6 percent decrease in all crime on the Tempe campus, with individual decreases in alcohol-related, aggravated assault and arson arrests. (Yes, let’s skew the data by excluding the major crime spikes at the outlying campuses).

ASU Assistant Chief of Police Jim Hardina said the decrease in crime can be attributed to programs that focus on educating students.

“I think a lot of factors of it has to do with different strategies, enforcement, education and working with other departments on campus to educate students and reduce crime,” Hardina said. (Translation? Other departments do our work for us!)

ASU spokeswoman Julie Newberg said in an email that the University has implemented many programs to increase safety on campus.

“The safety of students, faculty, staff and visitors is the University’s top priority,” Newberg said. “ASU has extensive programs and services in place and is continuously monitoring and improving them.” (What programs would these be? The alcohol taskforce you initally refused to participate in?)

ASU saw a decrease in alcohol-related crime in 2012, with arrests decreasing by 22 percent and violations referred for action down by 12 percent across all campuses, according to the report. (Arrests down for alcohol? ASUPD has become reactionary in nature, due the critical shortage of staffing. Less officers to be proactive = less arrests. Alternatively, having other agencies take the arrest stats for you).

While many areas did see a decrease in crime, all campuses saw an increase in theft and burglary, the report shows.

Tempe saw 28 more burglaries in 2012, a 40 percent increase from the previous year, according to the report. (40% increase!!)

According to the report, the Downtown, West and Polytechnic campuses saw a 42, 33 and 70 percent increase in theft, respectively. (Up to a 70% increase!? Unacceptable!) This translates to a relatively small 4.5 percent increase across all campuses, because each campus, excluding Tempe, has fewer students and fewer number of incidents. (Fewer students at the outlying campuses, yes…but crime rates nearly tripling in some cases!)

Another area in which crime increased is in drug-related arrests with ASU Police arresting 296 students in 2012, according to the report. This shows a approximately 62 percent increase from the previous year, when only 183 students were arrested, according to the report. (62% increase!??! How is the PD doing its job here? Let’s not forget not too terribly long ago ASUPD stated to azfamily.com that ASU’s drug crimes had DECREASED. So now they’re changing their story? )

Stewart Adams, crime prevention specialist for ASU, said the Crime Prevention Unit is the “proactive” unit of ASU Police and works to prevent crime on campus by giving safety presentations and checking the campus for safety. (Handing out flyers and pencils isn’t being “proactive”; having adequate staffing to allow OFFICERS to be proactive is most effective). While Crime Prevention Unit is very active on campus, the unit’s efforts are hard to measure, because prevented crimes are not able to be measured, Adams said.

 

Since when did ASU’s spokesperson/media relations guru Julie Newberg decide to release a story on behalf of the PD? Oh yeah, when negative stories come out about ASU that need to have a “positive” spin on them. Nice try.

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