On January 16, 2014, Chief John Pickens was due to swear in the three new officers who had successfully passed their AZPOST test. These new officers were very desperately needed in the department to alleviate ongoing staffing concerns. After the swearing in ceremony, one of the three officers presented chief with something he should be well acquainted with–a letter of resignation. The chief was enraged. Shortly afterwards the issued equipment–the new clunky and garish badge, uniform with new patches–were all being turned back into the property room to await their new owner (who probably wouldn’t be hanging around long either).
As esteemed members of the ASU Police Department, we would like to extend a special thanks to this officer for embodying the department’s toxic state into one singular action. It serves to illustrate the disturbing reality we live with daily which is putting more bodies into a lousy workplace won’t fix any of the problems at the department, it will only perpetuate them.
This latest lateral officer isn’t the first officer to do this by any stretch; there have been plenty who have quit in short order once they were exposed to our workplace. Chief Pickens is too proud to acknowledge the problems, too inept to understand and fix them. How many more employees must we tear through before Pickens realizes poor morale is the cause of the staffing problem??