Tag Archives: CLERY

Mar 10 2014
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Why ASUPD is incapable of handing an active shooter scenario

We have made several posts on The Integrity Report about why Arizona State University’s campuses are unsafe, and the issue of handling an active shooter on campus has been a reoccurring topic (click here to view our previous posts about active shooters).

To adequately prepare for a possible active shooter scenario, ASUPD’s approach must be three-pronged: ASUPD needs more officers to be able to respond/manage major situations, ASUPD needs to have a clear/common sense policy, and ASUPD needs to give its officers appropriate training.

Whether or not ASUPD will actually recruit and retain additional officers remains to be seen, but Command staff has known for years that its ability to deal with an active shooter is nonexistent. Several years ago, former Arizona Republic intern Matt Haldane interviewed then-Commander Jim Hardina about active shooters and guns on campus (view the video here). Hardina was unable to articulate what ASUPD’s policy in regards to dealing with an active shooter was!

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

(at :27)

In regards to ASUPD’s policy about active shooters:

Matt Haldane: And does ASU have a specific way of doing that? [referring to handling an active shooter]

Jim Hardina: Well, uh, the police department has a policy and the policy is…you…find the shooter…and…stop them from shooting. And you can’t really say you should do A, B, C, and D, because each situation’s dynamic, so, you know, each, uh…you’ll never have the same situation twice. So basically, the police’s role is to the stop the shooter from shooting, and the public’s role is to put themself (sic) in a position where they’re both safe. And again, you can’t have a specific policy because each situation is uh, different.

In regards to the active shooter training ASUPD’s officers receive:

(at 1:45)

MH: And…we spoke with a former Marine who was suggesting that ASU Police go through the same type of training that um, soliders do, in a combat situation where they’re able to quickly distinguish between a shooter and a bystander. What type of training do police officers receive?

JH: Um, I was in the Marine Corps also, and its a little bit different, what you don’t want is you don’t want police officers training with military tactics because you think soldiers…their job is to attack people and kill people…and that’s what they do. We don’t train police officers with that same kinda mindset clearing buildings, you know, looking to kill people. Um, what we train officers to do is exactly that, identify who’s a threat and who is not a threat, and um, act on the side of not shooting, as opposed to shooting. Police officer’s role is to take the least restrictive amounts to controlling somebody, which, the last resort would be actually killing them.

(So according to Hardina, in an active shooter situation, you shouldn’t be trying to kill the person (threat) who is actively maiming or killing innocent civilians. Interesting.)

Also, according to Hardina, 97% of all campus shootings involve a domestic violence dynamic (3:15); yet according to an FBI report addressing targeted violence at institutions of higher education, only 33.9% of incidents involving a weapon were domestic violence related (and firearms comprised only 54% of weapons used in targeted violence on campus).

So…what is ASUPD’s policy in regards to dealing with an active shooter?

First of all, the policy is titled “Rapid Response and Deployment” PSM 461-03, and it is not specifically limited to an active shooter; it also incorporates active terrorism. The initial officer on scene is responsible for notifying SWAT or hostage negotiators (neither of which ASU has). After a determination is made that tactical intervention is necessary, “available officers shall form a contact team and deployed as trained”. NONE of ASUPD’s officers receive training in forming tactical teams in a rapid response scenario.

Also, “the contact team should wear soft body armor and ballistic helmets and deploy service weapons, patrol rifles, and shotguns
with slug ammunition, if possible. The team should deploy according to departmental training“.

ASUPD’s officers are lucky if their body armor is replaced before it falls apart or expires; the “patrol riles” purchased by the department are currently in the custody of Chief Pickens and the rest of Command staff (who wouldn’t respond to a situation like this). Once again, no member of the department receives ANY departmental training that would adequately prepare them for this scenario.

This policy is not applicable to any member of the department, as NOONE has the proper training that falls in line with this policy (nor does ASUPD have the resources–SWAT, hostage negotiator, rifles–it cites its officers should use). The unofficial policy of dealing with a scenario like this? Call Tempe PD.

What type of training do ASUPD’s officer’s receive to deal with active shooters?

In addition to not receiving tactical ANY training to deal with an active shooter, the only post-academy training ASU’s officers receive is limited to free training ASU provides to all its students, faculty, and staff (check it out here). This video is geared toward  students/employees faced with an active shooter, and does NOT provide any sort of tactical training to a person working in a law enforcement capacity.

As we’ve previously mentioned, it is only a matter of time until ASUPD is forced to deal with an active shooter. The indifference/incompetence allowed to fester on the top level of the department will ultimately come at the expensive of an innocent civilian or a fellow officer.

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Mar 01 2014
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ASU misrepresents its crime statistics, violates Clery Act (Part Two)

In our last Clery post, entitled “ASUPD misrepresents its crime statistics, violates Clery Act (Part One)” , we looked at what the Clery Act is, what reporting is required  of universities who are obligated to adhere to Clery, and why the Clery Act is so important. In this second installment, we are going to discuss how exactly ASUPD is misrepresenting its crime statistics (and how that violates the requirements of the Clery Act).

1. ASUPD omits crime stats from specific reporting areas required under the Clery Act

In our previous post about the Clery act, we discussed different areas other than campus ASU is required to provide crime statistics for, namely:

Public Property

  • Public property (All public property, including thoroughfares, streets, sidewalks, and parking facilities, that is within the campus, or immediately adjacent to and accessible from the campus, as well as any public transit stops adjacent to campus).

However, according to page 33 of ASU’s 2013 Annual Security and Crime Safety report, we found this small disclaimer:

Clery public prob

Similarly, on page 34 of the Crime Safety report, we found this disclaimer for West, Poly, Downtown and Lake Havasu campus’ public property reporting:

West poly public

Down Lake Havasu

So essentially, what ASUPD is telling the public via the Crime safety report is that the crime stats on the report do NOT include areas adjacent to ANY campus, nor do they include the crime stats for the EIGHTEEN areas considered “non campus properties”.

ASUPD’s excuse for not including public property crimes is that ASU “is unable to provide a statistical breakdown appropriate for Clery Act reporting” is a weak excuse. The “Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting” requires a university  to show a “good faith” effort to collect crime data from another non-university police agency.

This “disclaimer” about not having statistical data appropriate for Clery reporting is to be utilized when other agencies refuse to release their crime statistics, or  the information provided to the university is unable to be attributed to ANY of the university’s Clery geography (page 103).  ASU IS provided crime stats/information (by Tempe PD) that are able to be broken down to the “public property” level simply by looking at the physical location of the offense; this is the type of work that crime analysts routinely engage in.

ASU is also able to request the crime stats for their non-campus properities by merely providing the address of the property to the appropriate jurisdiction. We reached out to Scottsdale PD, home of Skysong (one of the non-campus property locations) and we were told that ASU contacted them approximately one time to request crime information.

We accessed the database referenced in page 33 of the Crime Safety report to see what crimes ASU may have missed because of its exclusion of public property statistics, and this is what we found for ASU’s Tempe Campus:

Tempe 1

Tempe 2

ASU excluded a significant amount of crimes occurring adjacent to campus (and several that occurred ON campus but were handled by other police agencies) from its Crime Safety Report (go to raidsonline.com and use the date range of August 2012-August 2013 to view the above posted data in a clickable format)

 Non-campus property

These are the non-campus statistics from ASU’s Skysong Campus which are not included on the Tempe non-campus property in the Crime Safety report (cited from raidsonline.com, using the date range of August 2012-August 2013): Note that the campus boundary is marked with a solid blue line, and each of the crimes are circled in red.

Skysong crimes

Note there are five motor vehicle thefts, one sexual assault, and one commercial burglary NOT included in ASU’s Crime Safety Report.

 

2. ASUPD improperly classifies crimes so they don’t meet the criteria for Clery reporting

Sex offenses

Perhaps the most misclassified/reclassified type of crime are those linked to sex offenses. Clery Act has a much more broad definition of what a sex offense is compared to definition used by the UCR (which excludes forcible fondling). Under the Clery Act, there are two types of sex offenses: forcible and non-forcible.

  • Forcible sex offense: Forcible rape, forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, forcible fondling.
  • Non-forcible sex offense: Incest, statutory rape.

“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”, according to an article by publicintegrity.org.

In August 2007, an ASU student reported being sexually assaulted at the Sigma Chi fraternity house. Subsequent follow-up emails to then Assistant Chief Jay Spradling went unanswered, and the sexual assault was later reclassified. The student alleged that her sexual assault was not investigated by Officer Janda (who documented the assault on a field investigation card) because she was intoxicated. Clery specifically states that a sex offense is presumed to be forcible if the person is incapable of giving consent “due to his or temporary/permanent physical or mental incapacity”.

The woman, who later sued the Arizona Board of Regents for violating Title IX, stated ASU has in recent years systematically and severely underreported sexual assault reports. Her complaint states that in 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.

A 2010 State Press article interviewed a counselor who works with sexual assault victims and is closely affiliated with the university and stated, “ASU does not take sexual assault reports seriously enough, creating a climate that keeps victims quiet and crime stats low”.

In 2011, ASUPD arrested a man accused of fondling at least 14 victims on ASU’s campus the previous year. Under the Clery reporting guidelines, forcible fondling is required to be reported as a forcible sex offense. For the year the incidents occurred (2010), ASU reported a mere 6 forcible sex offenses that occurred on campus (see Campus_Security_Policy )

Prevalence of under reporting sexual assaults

USC, UC Berkley, and Occidental College are all major universities currently facing the possibility of sanctions from the Department of Education for failing to properly report the number of sexual assaults on campus.

Robbery

ASU has also reclassified several robberies into felony thefts, which would prevent their inclusion into ASU’s Crime Safety Report. Under the Clery Act, robbery is defined as:

    • Robbery: is the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person
      or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.

ASU has had several strong arm robbery series which occurred on ASU’s campus where the victim was robbed of an IPhone and then dragged by a vehicle; under the Clery Act, these crimes should have been listed as a “robbery”, but they were later reclassified to a “felony theft” or merely “theft”.

3. ASU doesn’t utilize its resources properly

While formal training in the field of statistics and crime analysis is not required for persons preparing the Crime Safety Report under the guidelines specified by the Clery Act, that type of knowledge is useful when tasked with processing a large amount of data in a relatively short period of time. ASUPD has been fortunate to have a crime analyst on board for the past few years, but unfortunately, the analysts’ job has been reduced to producing crime maps for bike thefts on campus.

ASU’s former analyst (who has subsequently left the department for greener pastures) was much more qualified to process and analyze crime data compared to the Commander in charge of Clery reporting (Michele Rourke), who merely possesses a bachelor’s degree in English and has no formal training in statistics

Additionally, with such a large criminal justice undergraduate/graduate program, ASUPD could utilize several unpaid student volunteers or interns to process and catalog crime reports; this is a relatively common practice in larger departments such as Tempe PD.

4. ASU needs stronger partnerships with other agencies

After looking at the various locations where ASU has property/research labs, it is obvious that the university’s footprint is pretty significant. ASU has demonstrated that it does not have the resources, training, or personnel to effectively fulfill its obligations under the Clery Act; ASU needs to form stronger partnerships and more effective ways to communicate with other police departments. Building a rapport with another agency would assist ASU in obtaining the proper crime information necessary for a thorough Crime Safety report, and perhaps allowing ASU to assist that agency in some other area in the future.

 All of this information, especially when coupled with the storm of negative media coverage over ASU’s crime situation, are evidence that ASU’s students/faculty/staff are NOT as safe as the university would lead them to believe. ASUPD knows the magnitude of the crime problems on and around all campuses, but refuses to do anything about it. 

There is no more hiding behind Tempe PD or any other police agencies; the other agencies did not create the staffing shortages, the lack of training, or incentives to stay in the department—you did, Command staff!  ASUPD is unable to fulfill its basic obligation to serve and protect its community. It is now a matter of time before ASU starts losing students (and $$) because of these shocking safety issues.

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Dec 23 2013
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The legal liabilities of ASUPD’s FTO program

Many comments have been made regarding the status of ASUPD’s FTO program–how it has been used as a tool to weed people out of the department, how different FTOs have different standards for each respective trainee–but none have discussed how poorly running an FTO program can have significant legal ramifications for ASUPD, as well as ASU.

The following excerpts were cited from J. Parkinson’s “The Cost of Inadequate Training“:

Title 42, U.S. Code, Section 1983 Claims states that all allegations of civil rights violations against the police are brought in Federal Court (Daane, D.M. and J.E. Hendricks, 1991).Section 1983 provides a remedy for the violation of an individual’s federally protected rights.

In order to file a Section 1983 claim, the plaintiff must show that the defendant acted under the color of state law, their conduct deprived the plaintiff of their rights secured by the Constitution, the training the officer received (regarding the injury suffered by the plaintiff) was inadequate, the inadequate training led to the injury, and there was deliberate indifference on the part of the municipality.  The Court ruled in Monell (1978) that a municipality could be sued if the plaintiff could prove the defendant violated their rights because the municipality failed to adequately train the defendant.  The Court ruled that liability for failure to train has to follow the strict standard of deliberate indifference.  The requirements to prove deliberate indifference include:  plaintiff must prove the municipality knew the officer would have to deal with the situation, there was training available that would have made the outcome of the situation different, and the municipality chose to not provide the officer with such training (McNamara, 2006).

Supervisors are also able to be held liable for an officer’s actions under Section 1983.  There are three elements, the court identified in Shaw v. Stroud (4th Cir. 1994), that must be present.  They are:

(1) that a supervisor had actual or constructive knowledge that his subordinate was engaged in conduct that posed ‘a pervasive and unreasonable risk’ of constitutional injury to citizens like the plaintiff; (2) that the supervisor’s response to that knowledge was so inadequate as to show ‘deliberate indifference to or tacit authorization of the alleged offensive practices,’ and (3) that there was an ‘affirmative causal link’ between the supervisor’s inaction and the particular injury suffered by the plaintiff.”

            It is not good enough to say a police department is properly trained, there has to be clear documentation that includes when the training was held, which officers attended, who was the instructor, and what material was covered (Dahlinger, 2001).  Documentation must be organized in a clear, concise manner so if an officer becomes a defendant in a failure to train lawsuit, or any other type, the training records can be submitted as evidence of training. Basically, if it is not documented, then it didn’t happen.   McNamara (2006, p.3) stated:  “Taking this proactive step will help reduce department liability by showing an ongoing commitment to proper training.”

  • Therefore, ASU’s piecemeal FTO program could cause the department to be held legally liable under U.S.C 1983 if they can articulate the officer was NOT adequately trained. Considering the fact that the FTO program has previously allowed FTOs and an FTO Supervisor to train rookie officers when they THEMSELVES were not certified to be field training officers, we believe this to be grounds for a pretty significant civil lawsuit against the department.
  • Additionally, an FTO Sergeant (ie, the “Supervisor” of the FTO program) could also be held legally liable by allowing non-certified FTOs to train rookies, and failing to intervene when there were allegations of wrongdoings by an FTO (ie, “tacit authorization of the alleged offensive practices”), Therefore, a certain FTO Sergeant who allowed several of her FTOs to terrorize a slew of rookies could be held legally liable in civil court.
  • Finally, as stated in this article, training records can be submitted as evidence of training…so what happens when those training records are altered from their original state to “prove” that a rookier officer isn’t qualified to pass field training? Beyond the possibility of a civil suit on behalf of a potential victim and the rookie themselves, this is a blatantly criminal act which has occurred several times at ASUPD.

The most disturbing part about the legal liability incurred as a result of ASUPD’s FTO program? Several members of Command staff, including the Chief have known about the situation at hand. Granted, these people have been removed from the FTO program, but they have all received NO punishment, and their actions have created a legal liability for the department that may linger for a long time.

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Dec 09 2013
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Catholic college police officer kills student after struggle.

Still think an on-campus shooting could never happen at ASU? At University of the Incarnate Word, a Catholic college in Alamo Heights, TX, an officer shot and killed a student after a struggle following a traffic stop. According to CNN:

The incident began when Cpl. Christopher Carter, a police officer with the University of the Incarnate Word in Alamo Heights, saw Robert Cameron Redus near campus “driving erratically at a high rate of speed” Friday, a university statement said.

“Carter was obligated to pull the suspect over to ensure the public’s safety,” the statement said.

Redus pulled into an apartment complex, and Carter followed, mistakenly reporting the wrong street location to police dispatchers, which prompted his call to be routed from the Alamo Heights Police Department to its San Antonio counterparts, the statement said. This caused a delay of several minutes in response time.

“During the wait for assistance, the officer tried to restrain the suspect who repeatedly resisted,” the statement said. “During the struggle, the officer attempted to subdue the suspect with his baton. … The baton was taken by the suspect who used it to hit the officer.

“The officer drew his firearm and was able to knock the baton from the suspect who continued to resist arrest. Shots were fired.”

We checked out the crime statistics for the university to see what sort of issues their department deals with; for 2012, the university had a total of 16 alcohol arrests, 3 drug arrests, 1 weapons violation, and 2 burglaries. THAT’S IT. If an officer-involved shooting can transpire at a university with relatively NO crime, it can definitely happen at a university with a significant amount of crime (ASU). The question ASUPD should be asking isn’t IF it will happen, but WHEN. Additionally, ASU needs to actually plan for some sort of major event, whether it is a shooting, or an active shooter scenario instead of focusing on stolen bicycles.

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Dec 07 2013
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Michael Crow: We have issues but they’re not unmanagable!

In an recent editorial interview with The State Press, ASU President Michael Crow had some interesting words to say about the university’s crime problem.

After being asked about the negative image the student population is projecting of ASU as a whole (as a result of many violent attacks, rising crime stats almost across the board), Crow stated: “Look at our statistics…Yes, we have issues, but they are issues that are not unmanageable … (and) all students are held accountable.” REALLY!?

We looked at your crime statistics several months ago, and yes, they’re unmanageable. They became so when your PD became UNABLE to respond as the primary unit for the majority of its calls. Why are they unable to respond? They’re so short-staffed they can’t even work their own special events. Of course sir, you wouldn’t have the slightest notion of this assertion, because when someone from your office calls to report a “suspicious package” (ie, a BANANA!), Chief Pickens sends out the entire department to a NON-CRIME RELATED CALL.

As for holding your students accountable? We’re all for it. You should also hold your staff accountable, especially the ones that oversee the management of the police department. Hold those people accountable who have looked the other way when millions of dollars was thrown down the drain.

Ironically, the article winds down with Crow stating, “We have a number of behavioral issues in and around the University, and they’re complex things that we’re working on. We need as much help and ideas as possible to be able to create the safest environment that we can create.”

On this blog, we’ve laid out almost every issue that desperately needs attention at ASUPD, in hopes that someone would read it and secure a safer and better environments for students and staff alike. Having s0me of “your people” investigate the merits of our claims is a step in the right direction, however, the exigency of the situation is quickly overtaking your ability to control it.

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Dec 04 2013
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How secure are ASUPD’s stations?

Excuse the colorful wording used in the title, but this is a major issue that hasn’t yet been broached on The Integrity Report. It’s one we’ve all had to deal with to some extent, and that is how secure our respective PD compounds are.

ASU’s Tempe campus has one of the most poorly-secured PD compounds around. First and foremost, there is absolutely NO secured parking for PD employees. How many of us have had our cars damaged, or had confrontations with people we had just arrested hours earlier? Almost all the major valley PD’s have some sort of secured parking for its employees (and we’re not even going to mention the COST to park in a place where your car gets messed with regularly!)

How secure is the INSIDE of a building when people who have NO business being there are allowed to roam freely? Prime example, former Assistant Chief Alan Clark. We understand he is still employee at the university in a different capacity, but why is he allowed unrestricted access to the PD? We’re sure not even Michael Crow himself could just waltz into the PD freely, so why is Clark allowed to? Additionally, Clark’s access to virtually every part of the PD poses a significant risk to the integrity of sensitive information. It is unheard of to let a former employee with a significant history of complaints against him potentially having access to IAs/complaints where he is listed as the perpetrator. The potential exists for him finish cleaning up some messes he may have left behind. (We are not suggesting this has happened, merely pointing out a hypothetical scenario).

What about the satellite campuses? They are in an even more critical situation than Tempe.

At Downtown Campus, It is not unusual to find transients sleeping/defecating around ASUPD’s “office” in the Post Office after hours, or even mentally ill transients trying to use the women’s restroom in the (old) basement of the post office. There’s no secured parking even for the PD vehicles, so they are easily susceptible to tampering by bad guys.

West Campus has a “temporary detention facility” that is completely unsafe. None of the cameras in the facility which monitor the area work, which means a prisoner must be physically observed by a secondary officer while the primary officer is completing paperwork. This opens up pandora’s box of safety/liability issues. Again, no secured parking for employees.

Polytechnic Campus has a building that is being eaten by termites, so needless to say, it would just take a strong kick and a bad guy could probably force his way into the building. No secured parking for employees here either.

Where is all the money the PD/university has budgeted to deal with physical infrastructure issues? The areas the students live in are nicer and more secure than what the university provides for its police department! Furthermore, the access the PD gives to non-employees needs to be address immediately to avoid a conflict of interest…or worse.

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Dec 04 2013
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Campus Police: The Feds are watching

…according to an article courtesy of one of our readers, thanks! This article presents several interesting points which ASUPD should take note of.

Questions emerge from DOJ’s investigation into University of Montana police

The blistering findings, though not always supported with documentation, serve as a warning shot for all campus police: the feds are watching.

Shar

In May, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), through the Special Litigation Section, released a public letter of findings in their investigation into the Office of Public Safety response to sexual assaults at the University of Montana. The DOJ looked at a three-year timeframe in which the campus police department allegedly inappropriately handled / investigated 30+ sexual crimes.

This appears to be the first time that the DOJ has conducted an investigation into a campus law enforcement agency. I also believe this is the first time that an agency of fewer than 20 officers has been thusly investigated.

With regard to the investigation, based on my review of the report and additional documentation, it is hard to determine the veracity of all the claims by the DOJ relating to sexually based crimes. But that’s not the only question mark.

Does the DOJ Have the Standing to Investigate?
The DOJ specifically conducted an investigation because the agency determined there was a pattern or practice of violating citizens’ Constitutional rights — that women were unfairly treated and discriminated against because of the failed investigations, practices, policies and procedures of the Department of Public Safety.

A question comes to mind. Is the federal government attempting to control and interfere with the rights of police officers to act in a professional manner, or are they attempting to increase police professionalism within higher education?

There is some discussion on that question now taking place among higher education law enforcement professionals.

While it should be the goal of every police department to run its operations based on the Constitution, it is apparent that not every agency is following those standards to the DOJ’s satisfaction — otherwise, we wouldn’t have DOJ investigations into local police agencies.

The fact is, DOJ has the power to civilly investigate organizations that have demonstrated a pattern and practice that violates the Constitution of the United States.

Furthermore, the May 9 letter to the university from Gary Jackson (DOE) and Anurima Bhargava (DOJ) specifically states that “[t]he (MOU) Agreement will serve as a blueprint for colleges, and universities throughout the country to protect students from sexual harassment and assault.”

To the lay person, this should serve notice that the federal government is coming after higher education law enforcement to ensure that they are conducting Constitutional policing, and not using any discriminatory practices. The DOE and DOJ are requiring remediation in regard to this civil investigation against the University of Montana, as well as the City of Missoula Police Department and the county.

Where did the University of Montana DPS Fall Short?
The Department of Public Safety (law enforcement) appeared in the report as completely incompetent when conducting investigations of sex-based crime — specifically when women are victims. But facts are sometimes not cited to back up the assertions.

Page 12 of the findings letter said, “We found that OPS response to reports of sexual assault is often marked by confusion, repetition, and poor investigative practices.” The DOJ does not provide examples to support their statement.

The DOJ also stated on page 11, “[w]omen who are intoxicated are at increased risk of sexual assault, and more than half of all non-stranger sexual assault involves alcohol use by the victim, assailant, or both.” This statement creates problems because it doesn’t present a way for the police department to address the alcohol factor.

The police department needs to patrol the campus community 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Additionally, the department needs to conduct regular police business, calls for service, crime prevention, and order maintenance activities. Addressing alcohol consumption, especially if done by legal adults behind closed doors, might be beyond the call.

How Can Campus Cops Prepare?
Change is knocking at the door of higher education. To address the base issue of sexual assaults, one solution is to form collaborative partnerships with community services organizations who serve victims on the campus and in the community.

To stay out of the government crosshairs it is important to keep a proactive, professional, and well-trained police agency. Keep a watch on the DOJ website and review laws, policies, and procedures that protect both the citizens and employees of the schools. Keep accurate records.

Review the Police Executive Research Forum policy meeting on consent decrees. If your organization falls subject to a DOJ investigation, contact a litigation group that specializes in dealing with consent decrees and federal monitoring to help prepare for the inevitable.

What Does it All Mean?
The lessons for campus law enforcement are not easily parsed from this report. But one is that campus law enforcement officers need to keep up on training so that they can avoid claims of failure to train, much like federal lawsuits that can be filled as set forth by the precedents of Monell v. Department of Social Services (1978) and Canton v. Ohio (1989). If campus police officers are unaware of these two federal cases, it is clearly in incumbent on organizational leadership to make their officers aware of the principles and holdings of these cases.

The second implication may be more important. The federal government is watching, and will be more than likely conducting investigations into campus law enforcement. So these agencies need to keep up with best practices and data relating to crime that occurs on the campus.

To summarize: a university PD should properly train its officers to absolve the department from legal liability; failure to do so is the result of poor leadership. Also, the federal government is watching and will be investigating more campus PDs. Interesting…sounds like the DoJ would have a field day at ASUPD.

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Nov 30 2013
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Shocking revelation! ASUPD can write citations. In other news, water is wet.

In the latest story from ASU’s State Press, Downtown Phoenix Campus students verbalized their disagreement with ASU’s new ban on smoking. Mind you, this policy is peer-enforced…has nothing to do with the PD whatsoever (despite the fact the university was initially misleading by having officers and random members of command “ask students nicely to stop smoking”).

ASUPD’s own Commander Chris “Sparky” Speranza was compelled enough to take the time out of his super busy day (ie, doing nothing) to make ASUPD look even more ridiculous. “There have been no citations for littering since the no-smoking policy went into effect”. Someone should inform him that he has two STELLAR Sergeants that have the ability to enforce the law, but that also requires them to 1) show up to work 2) dress out into their uniforms and 3) leave the Post Office. Maybe have an Officer enforce the littering law? Oh wait…they keep getting pulled to work at other campuses due to staffing concerns.

In case you were wondering about his street credibility folks, Sparky also said, “This [lack of littering citations] was not because the no-smoke policy is peer-enforced, as an ASU officer can issue a citation to any citizen”.

So just to clarify…we can write citations to any citizen. Gotcha. I was wondering what that book of citations was for!

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Nov 30 2013
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Toxic Leaders: When Organizations Go Bad

Thanks to one of our readers for sending us this article courtesy of LawOfficer.com. Read this and ask yourself…does this sound familiar?

In her book Toxic Leaders: When Organizations Go Bad, Marcia Whicker describes toxic leaders as “maladjusted, malcontent, and often malevolent, even malicious. They glory in turf protection, fighting, and controlling rather than uplifting followers.” A toxic police leader is maladjusted to the police context that values service to others over self; malcontented possibly because of a perceived slight experienced at some point in their career; often malevolent stemming from a pervasive disregard for the welfare of their subordinates; and surreptitiously malicious toward superiors who represent authority, while observably malicious toward peers and subordinates who are viewed as potential competitors. Toxic leaders specialize in demoralizing and humiliating subordinates in public.

We might well ask why world-class police organizations would put up with such behavior. One alibi stems from their ability to kiss up the chain of command while kicking down. Toxic police leaders always seem to have well-prepared presentations ready for their superiors and are ever ready to accept tasks without regard for the impact on their subordinates. Because they lead using fear, subordinates respond quickly to their direction. But they comply without commitment.

Toxic leaders are seen by many their subordinates and others in the police organization as arrogant, self-serving, inflexible and petty. Word among police officers spreads fast and they’ll go out of their way to avoid the toxic leader.

A chief-level officer in a large police agency once asked, “How do you know a leader in your organization is toxic?” We suggested that he observe how the patrol bid fills in. The last supervisors to get officers to voluntarily sign up for their sectors are often the ones being avoided by police officers because they display toxic tendencies. Patrol officers are not likely to voluntarily select the sector of a supervisor that displays these characteristics:

  1. An apparent lack of concern for the well being of subordinates.
  2. A personality or interpersonal technique that negatively affects organizational climate.
  3. A conviction by subordinates that the leader is motivated primarily by self-interest.

It is not one specific behavior that deems one toxic; it is the cumulative effect of de-motivational behavior on unit morale and climate over time that tells the tale.

When asked whether they have toxic leaders in their organizations police officers from many different police organizations and at varying levels respond with a resounding affirmative. After repeating that question in dozens of seminars we have anecdotal information that suggests toxic leaders are ubiquitous in police organizations.

It can be demoralizing when toxic leaders continue to get promoted to levels of increasing responsibility. In a recent coaching course for newly promoted police supervisors, a police sergeant stated, “We all know who the bad leaders are, but the police department sticks that person away in a bureau out of sight where the bad leader can spend all his time studying for the next promotion exam. The bad leader scores high on the promotion exam, gets promoted and is released back on the troops to exact revenge. Once they screw up again and/or destroy the careers of good, hard-working officers, they are placed back into a bureau to study for the next promotion exam.”

This newly promoted police supervisor’s statements must have resonated with the other 40 newly promoted police supervisors from varying police agencies in the room because everyone was shaking their heads in agreement and raising their hands for the chance to tell their toxic leader story.

Assignment changes and promotion provide the avenue that toxic police leaders use to go from one place to another within the police organization spreading their poison. Police officers who have to work with or for a toxic leader are relegated to waiting them out because it is only a matter of time before the toxic leader is removed, placed into another assignment or promoted.

This can have devastating effects on police officers and police organizational culture. Toxic leaders leave in their wake an environment devoid of purpose, motivation, and commitment. In short, toxic police leaders deny police organizations and individual police officers true leadership.

Some suggest that exposing toxic police leaders for what they are would go a long way to solving the problem. Unfortunately, tools like multi-rater leader assessments, climate assessments and employee surveys are not commonly used in police organizations. The argument stems from a questionable belief that these “business tools” do not work or translate well to police organizations.

A tool like a 360-degree feedback instrument would provide some insight into toxic police leadership, but according to Dr. Howard Prince, Brigadier General U. S. Army (Ret.) and Director of the LBJ School’s Center for Ethical Leadership, there is not a validated 360-degree feedback tool available specifically for law enforcement. Perhaps toxic leadership is so prevalent in police organizations because the organizational culture enables and sustains it.

In their book Toxic Workplace! Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power, Mitchell Kusy and Elizabeth Hollaway suggest that toxic leaders can only thrive in toxic cultures. Promoting and moving toxic leaders around the organization might be an inappropriate organizational response that serves to enable them.

Another troubling explanation for the existence of toxic police leadership is the possibility that toxic behavior is tolerated, if not encouraged, by leaders at the top of police organizations. Police executives lose credibility when they claim to be advocates of healthy police cultures yet fail to take action against toxic police leaders. Leaders at the top of the organization often mistake short-term mission accomplishment for good leadership. It is possible to run even a good organization into the ground if attention is not paid to the long-term health and welfare of its members.

Leaders who serve at the executive level in police organizations may be the only ones that have the power and authority to counter toxic leadership. Subordinates are not generally in position to address the problem of toxic leaders because toxic leaders are characteristically unconcerned about them and immune to influence from below. Lynne F. McClure, author of Risky Business: Managing Violence in the Workplace, explains why toxicity goes without remedy: “The biggest single reason is because [the behavior is] tolerated.” McClure, an expert on managing high-risk behaviors, believes that if an organization has toxic managers, it is because the culture enables it—knowingly or unknowingly—through nothing more than apathy.

Police organizations can take steps to minimize the number of toxic leaders in their organizations by fostering a shared vision of what good leadership is and is not. Possible antidotes to toxic leadership include:

  • Put a label to the problem (toxic leadership) and talk about it openly.
  • Develop and select with an eye to leadership style, not simply technical skills and short-term effectiveness.
  • Hold supervisors responsible for the leadership style of their subordinates.
  • Implement climate assessments and 360-degree multi-faceted evaluations as developmental tools.
  • Have the hard discussions with subordinates who display toxic tendencies and promptly address behaviors that are not in keeping with the values of the organization.

This article summarizes ASUPD’s “leadership” style perfectly: ones who can’t hack it on the street are promoted (and allowed to run their subordinates into the ground), while the rest of command staff tolerates the toxic behavior.

Chief Pickens, whatever professionally credibility you previously had is now destroyed. You can’t claim you are a successful head of a police department when you have droves of employees quitting due to YOUR inaction and YOUR mismanagement. You have allowed the department to implode because you don’t care about the long-term health/well-being of your employees. But hey, McDonald’s is always hiring…right Chief?

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Nov 25 2013
3 Comments
General

How many more officers can ASUPD handle losing?

One more piece of evidence that illustrates perfectly the end result of ASUPD’s mismanagement:

We’re told that a grand total of six more officers will be out of ASUPD by the end of December (this number includes the officer who just went to MCCPD). That is unreal! All six of these officers are intelligent and talented, and we’re so happy to hear that they’ve decided to move on to greener pastures. It’s not rocket science! Treat your people well, impart them with the tools to do their jobs effectively, and trust they will do the right thing! Intervene when necessary, and stamp out fires/conflicts before they fester.

If everything that has been said here on The Integrity Report is not true, Chief Pickens, then why are so many people fleeing from ASUPD in droves? You can keep trying to explain away us and postings on indeed.com as just disgruntled employees, but the proof is in the numbers. There is obvious validity to our assertations here.

All these people who have left and who are actively trying to leave have formulated their own opinions of ASUPD based on their experiences in dealing with the department, seeing how others are treated, and hearing how other PDs in the valley treat their employees.

ASUPD can’t logically function with the staffing numbers they currently have, and aren’t able to staff the satellite campuses now. How much longer are you going to claim that there’s no problem, Chief Pickens?

 

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