Tag Archives: City of Tempe

Nov 20 2013
13 Comments
General

Excessive use of force cases: who watches the watchmen?

We’re all acutely aware how our reaction to a situation as law enforcement officers may sometimes have significant negative costs associated with them, sometimes in the form of criminal or civil punishment. How many times have we all seen a scenario where an officer used an excessive amount of force and was later sued civilly or sentenced to prison? Unfortunately, pretty frequently. But for every time an officer is reprimanded/fired for using force excessively, how many times did he/she use force excessively prior to this? Is it a sudden break in a person’s psyche that caused them to slip, or was their decent into the darkness of malfeasance a slow, yet loud path? More importantly, how are we as law enforcement professionals reacting to and dealing with the situation at hand?

At the ASU Police Department, no one  at the command level seems to be asking the aforementioned questions (quite frankly, the only questions being asked on the 3rd floor are, “How do we make this blog go away!?”). We’re pretty impressed there seems to be accountability within the officer ranks, but what happens when your command fails you?

One Cpl. is a prime example of an excessive use of force handled poorly at the upper level. Recently, a Cpl. deployed his taser several times on a subject who was restrained and was not an active aggressor. The situation was documented properly, all the ducks were in a row…and then nothing happened (it’s important to note that we are criticizing ASUPD’s response to the situation, not the action itself). At the MINIMUM, why would a department not place the person in question on administrative leave merely to assess the merit of the situation, and to allow that person to mentally recover? No PD that wishes to minimize its legal liability would even dream of letting this person back on the road anytime soon. However, in the parallel universe that is ASUPD, no IA was conducted, and no higher entity reviewed the use of force in this situation.

There are several more use of force incidents that have occurred within the past six months–a rookie officer tasing a subject running away from him, for starters–we know have NOT been investigated by the upper tiers of the department, and definitely not by anyone OUTSIDE the department. There is NO civilian/sworn use of force review panel, NO IAs, and NO information being sent to AZ POST.

Congratulations in hitting a new low, ASUPD; there is no longer even a thin blue line separating line level officers (good guys) from common criminals (bad guys), because command staff has dissolved that line with their inactions and mismanagement.

Welcome to the final frontier of policing, folks.

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Nov 12 2013
4 Comments
General

Why Tempe PD’s officer sex scandal could mean trouble for ASUPD.

Everyone in the country right now is talking about the former undercover Tempe PD detective who slept with the drug dealer she was supposed to be investigating. This is pretty scandalous, even by Arizona’s standards!

Needless to say, we weren’t surprised when this story made national news on a major media syndicate, Fox News. They discussed the topic at length, and a prior law enforcement officer “consultant” for the show said the department investigating the complaint should also be assessing the detective’s TRAINING and SUPERVISION in addition to alleged offenses.

All of us in law enforcement know that when something major occurs  in a department (excluding ASU) quite often the supervisors/trainers are also held liable because of their negligence or nonfeasance in supervision/training. How many times has a supervisor at ASUPD been written up for negligence in training or supervision?

We’re willing to bet virtually none, because almost all supervisors and FTO Sergeants (current and past) would have been fired already. In case you weren’t aware, AS supervisors or FTO supervisors, your job description ALSO includes either supervising or training (sometimes both). Additionally, your SUPERVISORS also have SUPERVISORS. That means when stuff really hits the fan, someone in a position of authority should look to see who was managing the person that messed up as well as THEIR supervisor.

Adequate training also plays a key role in the liability game too. All of us at ASUPD know the hard work Sergeant T put into building a LEGITIMATE, liability free FTO program. He knew how a failure for officers to be properly trained could cause a huge legal issue for ASUPD, so he utilized a previously established and legally sound FTO program. After being destroyed by both Sergeant Pam Osborne and Sergeant Fuchtman, what remains of the FTO program is nothing like the one Sergeant T implemented; it remains now as one of ASUPD’s greatest liabilities.

At this point, ASUPD doesn’t even require a major incident in order for someone to peel back the layers of liability and find out who hasn’t been doing their jobs; it only takes a FOIA request and half a brain. In addition to the aforementioned issues, ASUPD should be aware of the fact that the nation’s focus right now is on the major scandal transpiring in Tempe, AZ. It wouldn’t take a whole lot of work to throw some of ASUPD’s issues into the mix too.

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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
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
5 Comments
General

How ASU’s usage of comp time violates Federal labor law.

There’s been some discussion at ASUPD recently about the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and how it is applicable to law enforcement. We were doing some fact finding regarding a statement that mandatory firearms training is not considerable compensable time (ASUPD officers should be “grateful” they’re paid for training!), when we stumbled across some interesting info about compensatory time.

Compensatory—or comp time, as it is commonly referred to—is a way for a police department to pay its non-exempt employees for hours worked over 40 in a work week.  For the purpose of this discussion, the FLSA considers “exempt” employees that make a minimum salary per year, among other requirements.[i],

Therefore, all of ASUPD’s line level officers and first tier supervisors would be considered “non-exempt”. According to the FLSA, under certain prescribed conditions, a State or local government agency may give compensatory time [to non-exempt employees], at a rate of not less than one and one-half hours for each overtime hour worked, in lieu of cash overtime compensation. Employees engaged in police and fire protection work may accrue up to 480 hours of compensatory time. An employee must be permitted to use compensatory time on the date requested unless doing so would “unduly disrupt” the operations of the agency[ii].

Last we checked, on a work week longer than 40 hours, ASUPD wasn’t paying out comp time at a rate of time and ½, and beyond that, we definitely didn’t have the ability to use it. The department itself is causing “the emergency that disrupts operations” by continuously allowing critical staffing shortages, so does that mean it is an acceptable reason to deny the usage of comp time? ASUPD command likes to utilize comp time like a carrot on the end of a stick; it looks appealing in theory, but in practice, it is elusive and creates low morale.

[i] http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/toolkit/compensation/paypolicy/flsa/#

[ii] http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs8.pdf

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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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