TCFC Welcomes you to 2024! Detailed Account from a TCFC Member of TPD and Sheriff Nanos Failures; TCFC Completes first testimony to State Legislature
Happy New Year from TCFC. We are dedicating this newsletter to a member who wishes to remain anonymous:
From a TCFC member:
"An apartment tenant of our company reported someone had burglarized their apartment. Our staff entered the tenant’s apartment to examine the damage with the tenant and while in the apartment, the same burglar re-entered the apartment through a window. The burglar cooked a meal in the tenant’s apartment, showered, and slept in the tenant’s bed. He rummaged through his clothing, stole personal belongings and caused extensive property damage. The burglar had left behind fentanyl paraphernalia (tinfoil, straw, lighter) in the apartment and came back to retrieve it! An altercation between our staff and the burglar ensued inside the apartment and in the parking lot. Our staff convinced the burglar to comply with staff commands and called 911 to report a burglary in progress.
The suspect was promptly arrested by TPD but released hours later. The jail refused to book him on medical grounds as he had a broken hand. A TPD patrol sergeant decided to simply drop him off at the hospital as TPD didn’t have enough officers to keep him in custody while in the hospital. TPD made this decision knowing that the burglar had been indicted days prior for another burglary and had a 20+ year arrest/prison record with a documented history of drug abuse and mental illness. He has victimized dozens of homes and businesses on the west side and is well known to TPD.
Less than one week later, the same individual entered an occupied commercial business on Ft. Lowell Road and refused to surrender to TPD patrol officers. The SWAT team was deployed, and Ft. Lowell Road was closed for 4 hours as dozens upon dozens of officers and units were tied-up. The suspect was arrested (again), still had a broken hand, but this time TPD kept him custody.
The individual, Akil White, is now held in the Pima County Jail on a $40k bond. Attached is a photo of officers removing him from our staff vehicle along with his record including 45 misdemeanor court cases and over 10 felony court cases. These numbers don't include all of the times he was arrested and not charged/prosecuted.
The SWAT situation, the victimization of more citizens and businesses, as well as the deployment of additional resources was entirely avoidable and preventable. It’s an inexcusable failure."
See BELOW at end of this message for the 13 Pages of Docket Court Cases and Dismissals by Judges
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TCFC’s Take:
We have been strong supporters and proponents of TPD since our formation. We implore our members and the community to report crimes. We have rightly criticized Mayor & Council for implementing policies that tie the hands of TPD and rob it of the resources needed to protect the community while at the same time funding and implementing policies that make it impossible for TPD to effectively police, including: the Free Crime Bus, a permissive attitude towards public open-air drug use, aggressive panhandling, shoplifting, loitering and permitting encampments in washes, parks, public property as well as private property. We have criticized Sheriff Nanos for releasing criminals due to his unwillingness to take accountability for medical intake as it is his responsibility. The jail under Sheriff Nano's rules, refused to book him on medical grounds as he had a broken hand. Even though the jail has a fully capable medical facility, Sheriff Nanos refuses anyone with medical issues including the usage of Fentanyl or treatment with Narcan (Offenders know that if they say they have recently used fentanyl or were treated with Narcan, they will be rejected from booking).
We have also criticized the Pima County Attorney’s Office (Laura Conover) for causing a staffing shortage and chaos in her office, failing to prosecute, failing to seek appropriate sentencing, and failing to protect our community by permitting and encouraging lawlessness. These are impotent, failed organizations. We now add TPD to that list!.
The data bears these failures out. Pima County has the highest fatal overdose rate of any non-rural county in Arizona. Pima County has the highest crime rate of all counties in Arizona per 100k people:
Apache (96) Greenlee (113) Graham (290) Pinal (369) Santa Cruz (371) Navajo (389) Cochise (432) Yavapai (457) Yuma (504) Mohave (656) La Paz (710) Maricopa (787) Gila (796) Coconino (820) Pima (828)
Further, with inexcusably long police response times, lack of investigative follow-through, and horrific delays in getting police reports, the public has simply stopped reporting crimes. Alternatively, so many 911 calls are met with such a late response and/or no response, the outcome when officers finally arrive on scene is no crime is found.
We have reported to TPD leadership basic failures in policing. For example, TPD’s online crime reporting tool is missing certain streets and addresses. TPD is handing out victim pamphlets dating from Chief Magnus’ command with the wrong link to register for victim services. The same outdated and wrong victim pamphlets are being distributed weeks later. How many more victims need to further suffer by not being able to register for victim services?
TCFC spent hundreds of hours with Pima County to open the Transition Center at the Pima County Jail, TPD has failed to widely promote its opening to patrol officers as a tool officers can use for misdemeanor arrests. One reason why- patrol officers are literally running from high priority call to high priority call, resulting in a lack of arrest for anything but the most violent crimes.
The harsh reality is that although understaffing is a driving force behind TPD’s failures, it is far from the sole source of TPD’s failures.
TPD’s decisions including failure to strongly and publicly advocate for what it needs, inability to recruit and retain officers, failure to invest in its own equipment, and most importantly, failure to protect life and property have led to one conclusion: TPD is broken, and its failures are creating more victims.
It’s time for TPD to treat its own department and public safety like the 5-alarm blaze that it is.
To the patrol officers:
We know you’re putting your lives in danger in an unforgiving environment in which your sacrifices are willfully disregarded and ignored. We feel your frustration every time you make an arrest only for it not be prosecuted by the Pima County Attorney’s Office (Laura Conover) or for a suspect to be refused by the jail on medical grounds (Sheriff Nanos) or drive by people openly smoking and injecting drugs in front of you. It’s demeaning and demoralizing and disrespectful. Continue contacting us privately in confidence to share your frustrations so that we may advocate on your behalf. We will continue to stand with you!
We implore TPD leadership to the do the following:
- Suspend any non-urgent travel for TPD leadership. All hands are needed on deck!
- Authorize as much overtime as is needed to restore law and order until your reach adequate staffing levels.
- Work with the Sheriff and Pima County to stop discharging individuals for basic medical problems including substance use and treatment with Narcan. If someone commits a crime, they need to be arrested and jailed appropriately. It is not excusable to release someone for a broken hand. Work on solutions and implement them! Don’t allow criminals to continue re-victimizing through repeated failures of the criminal justice system.
- Advocate for yourselves and for public safety!! Bring transparency! Whether it’s your dilapidated Crown Victoria police cars or broken blood testing equipment to process DUI cases, start advocating! If you’re not getting what you need from Mayor & Council, which is plainly obvious, stand-up and bring it to the public. Bring it to every level of government. Silence is costing lives and making the City an intolerable place to live or work.
- Get on with it and if you can’t for whatever reason, resign in PROTEST, and do so publicly. Seek employment at a department that appreciates your contribution. The Mayor & Council are letting our City swirl the drain in front of our eyes. Honor Your Oath to Serve.
To our members:
Continue informing us when TPD fails you. Call the media. We will assist you.
We are fighting failed government infrastructure at every level. We won’t sit idly by as we watch those who are charged with protecting us, fail us. We won’t bear silent witness as fentanyl addicts terrorize our community without regard for others or consequences in their pursuit of a lawless lifestyle driven by drug addiction. We are going to advocate and fight back when we see misguided policies that favor criminals and those who victimize over victims and productive members of the community. Please join us as we enter 2024 and fight to take back Tucson from the vice grips of misery.
TCFC Completed Our First Testimony at the State Legislature, last Week!
Stay tuned this coming week for details on this very important first step!!!!
TCFC Members Matter and are getting attention!!!
13 Page Court Cases for AKIL WHITE
CLICK HERE: FOR VIEWING PDF DOCUMENT clearer OF BELOW
Response to Mr. Sixto Molina who stated, “TPD staff and Chief Kasmar need the publics support now more than ever. Do the right thing and support your local police and sheriff’s Department.”. Fact is with TPD there is no separation between Chief Chad Kasmar and his controllers the mayor and council. TPD rank and file and its citizens work well with each other and are one-team, I have seen that. Kasmar is now spending over 300K on a WOKE police recruiting firm called Brinks (look them up). TPD historically has always been top-heavy with police commanders and now Kasmar has cut all patrol special deployments (Organized retail theft and bike patrols) to come up with monies for this firm and two extra lieutenants who he wants to be Force Commanders. We hear now that these special patrol deployments will come back soon but on a very limited basis making them ineffective. Kasmars plan is to get his Force Commander positions filled and approved by our mayor and council soon causing another patrol Over-Time cut backs by 20-25%. I’m sorry Sixto but with these details we all need to call our mayor and council and say NO to Kasmars horrible plans (the mayors and Kasmar’s plan). Kasmar needs to use the commanders he has to provide Force Commander duties. His commanders do not want to rotate because they don’t want to work one weekend night out of a month and most do not have a tactical bone in their body. Brinks Firm has no experience with police recruiting so they need to be dropped, there are other recruiting firms who are succussful in this field already for many years. TPD has way too many commissioned personnel (commanders/ supervisors) who are assigned take-home vehicles, city gas cards who live in the suburbs, offices with 2-3 computer monitors and who are allowed to work from home way too many times each week. We are in horrible inflationary times, watch-dogs need to inform us taxpayers and us citizens need to contact our mayor and council and say no to their new police dept. horrible plans and practices. Patrol duties are a back bone to every police/ sheriff dept., cutting that one department is aburd. We can support the rank and file but having a constant eye on law enforcement administrators, then calling them out from time to time is our duty.
This is no shocker, however TPD has always done their job, it’s the court systems to include juvenile court who is the worst at this. The policies have changed because they don’t want to pay to house people in jail. You did this to yourself. This has been going on since Regina has been Mayor.
Re: Akil White. For felonies 4 and 5 of his career, he was placed on probation. That’s for felonies 4 and 5. These crimes occurred in 9-2020. He did so poorly on probation that it was revoked, and you know how much time he was sentenced to…. 30 days. It looks like both felonies were class 3s so potential punishment was probably somewhere about 5-10 for each?
So, where is the deterrence? What was the county attorney’s position? At this point, he would have had three prior felony convictions for sentencing enhancement? Why were those dismissed so he could get probation? They would have to have been dismissed to make his Change of Plea a probation available plea.
More recently, when he was arrested, apparently for the TFCF members burglaries, he was released to the third party custody of Pretrial Services. This was on or about 11-30-2023? With five prior felony convictions? he was released?? Why?
So, what did he do? He did the swat call out incident on or about 12-18-2023. He was held on 40,000 bond, finally. Now, he is looking at beaucoup time with five or six priors and committing a felony(ies) while on release. But how did he get out on Third Party release? Where was the county attorney?
What is going to happen now?
96 misdemeanors??? 16 in 2023 alone, not including his felonies?
How much money do you think we have spent on this guy? How much money is the city, county, state, fed govt paying him to keep him in business? How much for all the services afforded him? It seems as if he is a full time employee of some governmental agency?
And what about the guy who killed the little girl? Why didn’t he get the death penalty? Do we also accept this behavior?
I have a question for the current and ex-law enforcement officers. If the city, county or state again declares some kind of emergency mandating masks, spatial distancing, will you arrest me if I don’t wear a mask? Or walk the wrong way down an aisle?
LOL to Susan E. thinking I’m Laura Conover posing as someone else. I assure you, my comment below was my own. There’s more than one person in Tucson with good writing skills.
I’m honestly not here to say that everything is peachy keen with public safety, law enforcement, and prosecution in Southern Arizona—it’s not. However, I do maintain that public perception tends to be skewed by emotion and is not always based in fact. Since Laura Conover doesn’t appear to be commenting on this blog, you might instead want to read her own words from a November 20, 2023 Guest Opinion piece published on Tucson.com. You can find it here:
https://tucson.com/opinion/column/laura-conover-public-safety-progress-in-pima-county/article_a913b5ea-84ce-11ee-864b-d3dd4434b699.html
Since some folks may not have digital access to it, here’s an excerpt, in Conover’s own written words:
“Here is the actual record of the People’s Office:
Violent crime is down. Homicides in particular are at a 34% reduction from this point two years ago, outperforming the nation and the rest of the state. This is County-wide data relied upon by our Office and law enforcement.
Prevention is up. We handed out 18,463 gun locks on nights and weekends last year, and the Public Service Announcement about calling 911 in case of overdose that we produced with our Police Chief and County Sheriff is making an impact in keeping people alive.
We teach and advocate an aggressive charging and detention standard when we believe a defendant poses an ongoing threat of harm. The only difference now in this current Administration is that our violent crime units are better resourced, holding violent actors accountable, because we have moved substance use disorder and mental health safely back to Public Health instead of criminalizing illness as a felony."
She goes on to address other topics. Of course, we’ll each judge her statements through our own lenses. But I wanted to share her recent position on some of these topics.
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