Tag Archives: football

Jan 03 2014
6 Comments
General

Chief Pickens and his love of ASU Football: who is picking up the tab?

We know Chief Pickens’ LOVES ASU Football; it is pretty apparent due to his regular attendance at nearly every home ASU game. However, what has us concerned is his very frequent road trips with the ASU football team to attend their away football games, which also includes traveling to ASU’s end of season bowl games. Our question is this: what entity provides him with the funding to go to all the away football games? Does the money come from the police department budget, or does the money come from the athletic department?

Either way, you’d be hard pressed to find another major university sending its POLICE CHIEF to every football game, home or away. Other major universities–Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and USC, to name a few–send one or two OFFICERS to away football games (this includes bowl games as well).

It speaks volumes about Chief Pickens’ priorities when he bends over backward to attend every football game, yet removes himself from his own department’s advisory board (which is designed to fix the problems that are crippling ASUPD).

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Dec 03 2013
3 Comments
General

ASU students swarm ticket office, assault an officer, and nearly riot!

Following ASU’s football victory over the U of A Wildcats last Saturday night, ASU decided to allow students to purchase tickets for the PAC-12 Championship. Obviously, emotions are pretty high amongst the student populous, and everyone converged upon Wells Fargo Arena in a rush to purchase tickets. After several hundred  students (well over a thousand, easily) swarmed WFA, ASU decided to shut down ticket sales, which ignited the crowd. The students at WFA began throwing barriers, fighting, and one of our own was assaulted.

As if the horrible planning on behalf of the university wasn’t enough of an insult, the appalling staffing levels ASUPD displayed at this event should do the trick. Low staffing in ANY situation is bad, but having a couple of officers to manage several hundred angry students IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. The sad thing is several additional officers were pulled from on-duty patrol, which means if something massive were to break out elsewhere, ASUPD would be unable to respond.

If something more serious had happened, has ASUPD even given its officers adequate enough training to be able to respond to the situation? Several other major universities–Ohio State University, Michigan State University, University of Georgia–all have Special Response Teams (SRT) specially trained in riot/crowd control, among other things. Why? Because they’ve had riots or other major incidents on campus they’ve had to respond to. We’re not suggesting ASUPD should form an SRT team soon (there is no staffing!!), but it should be included in future plans of the department as the university grows.

Bottom line: ASUPD should NOT place its officers KNOWINGLY into a situation where the officer must rely on a “nothing will happen!” mentality. This is NOT a realistic, safe, or stable strategy. You are running a bare-bones operation at THE COST OF YOUR EMPLOYEES’ SAFETY! It does not take any formal training in law enforcement for a REASONABLE person to observe that the aforementioned scenario is bad!!

We are glad the officer involved is OK, and relieved the situation was not worse, but we are concerned about how quickly ASUPD’s predicament is turning ugly. We should NOT have to wait and find out how much more violence will transpire before ASUPD removes Chief Pickens.

http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/24111992/2013/12/02/asu-student-arrested-after-fans-swarm-ticket-office

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcK35ZZyVAA

 

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,