COMPA president responds to InMaricopa.com article

InMaricopa.com runs, on a regular basis, opinion pieces submitted by community members. The following article is the opinion of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of InMaricopa.com

In response to the InMaricopa.com article, Police officials address misconduct allegations (see article), written by Michael K. Rich on Oct. 16, 2009, COMPA would like to provide some important points of clarification. The article excuses the inappropriate activities of Maricopa police supervisors and middle management, and fails to include important information about each incident that supports the allegations submitted by COMPA.

First, some clarification in the Erik Whitman incident; where Sergeant Ed Alameda decided to leave an injured arrestee, Whitman, at a Florence convenience store instead of taking him to the hospital and then to jail. Sergeant Ed Alameda was serving as Officer Pam O’Neal’s field trainer, while also serving as a squad supervisor. What wasn’t mentioned in the article was that though Officer O’Neal was an officer in training (OIT) she understood how wrong it was and disagreed with Alameda’s decision to leave a person stranded. Also not mentioned was that Sergeant Alameda called Lieutenant Larry Eckhardt and got his permission to leave the injured and intoxicated Whitman, nearly fifty miles away from Maricopa, to find his own way back. It was also stated that the incident was investigated by Maricopa police; yet no internal affairs case for this incident exists. The excuse for Alameda’s and Eckhardt’s poor decision making was that, “the department was in its infancy” and that because the arrest dealt with a misdemeanor charge, it was ok to “cut them loose.” What is not mentioned is the fact that the misdemeanor arrest was for a confirmed warrant, where a judge or magistrate had issued a court order to arrest and book Whitman into jail. Also not mentioned was that Eckhardt came to the Maricopa police department with more than thirty years of law enforcement experience and Alameda with more than a decade.

The second incident mentioned in the article involved the reported assigned seating for Sergeant James Hudspeth at the briefing table. Officer Elliot Sneezy suffered the humiliation of being ordered by Hudspeth to get out of ‘his chair’ after he struck Sneezy twice in the back. Adding insult to injury, the incident was minimized by the statement that it was “more of a light jab to the back” and that Sneezy did not feel much because he was wearing a ballistic vest. More upsetting was that it was stated in the article that Sneezy was purposely trying to get under Hudspeth’s skin by sitting in ‘his chair;’ which is untrue. The briefing table is located in a common area that is used by all personnel and there are no assigned seats.

The most appalling bit of information left out of the article about the Hudspeth incident was that Sergeant Koozer, Lieutenant Eckhardt and Lieutenant Payne were present, and all failed to act appropriately. Immediately after being struck and challenged by Hudspeth to take the confrontation outside, Sneezy turned to Koozer, looking for intervention; Koozer did nothing. Officer Josh Paulsen, also present during the incident, submitted a formal complaint against Hudspeth and Eckhardt, stating that Eckhardt coached Hudspeth to write in his memorandum that he “may have brushed [Sneezy] a little to get him out of the chair in a joking manner, or maybe a little push.” The lack of integrity and the gross misconduct demonstrated by middle management certainly should have been included in the article (Internal Affairs report SI-09-04 and internal memorandum from Officer Paulsen to Sergeant Hal Koozer; Paulsen_Complaint Against Eckhardt and Hudspeth_SI-09-04_031509).

It was also commented that the other two allegations made by COMPA attorney Martin Bihn, “were already investigated and determined to have no weight.” The exclusion of these incidents in the article leads personnel to believe that complaints of excessive force and racial discrimination are taken lightly. Otherwise, the formal complaint by Officer Elliot Sneezy, a Native American, against Lieutenant Willie Payne would have been taken more seriously. In the investigation of the complaint against Payne, Sneezy was told that he should not have been offended when Payne chastised him in an email message for questioning another officer, and when Payne wrote, “it seems there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” Lieutenant Larry Eckhardt investigated the formal complaint and Chief Kirk Fitch concurred with his findings in adding that the term was an idiom and deemed culturally acceptable (Internal Affairs report SI-08-12).

Then there was the head-kicking incident. It was mentioned that the incident was investigated and that there was no wrong doing by Maricopa police. But there is no mention of the fact that the subject was kicked in the head while handcuffed behind his back and being carried by three police officers. There is no mention that the officer who kicked the subject in the head was actually a supervisor; Sergeant Hal Koozer. Also missing was the fact that when Koozer completed the report of the incident, he failed to mention that he kicked the subject in the head while he was handcuffed. There was no mention that it wasn’t until one of the other officers on scene filed a formal complaint and the incident was investigated, that Koozer admitted to kicking the handcuffed subject. Nor was it mentioned that the entire incident was investigated by Lieutenant Larry Eckhardt who concluded that Koozer did nothing wrong in kicking the handcuffed subject in the head. Eckhardt stated that because the subject tried to bite one of the officers’ lower leg, and could have had some disease, the subject’s attack against the officer was possibly “life threatening;” a gross misinterpretation of the facts and obvious cover-up (Internal Affairs report SI-08-01 and internal memorandum from Officer Dao to Sergeant Stant; SI-08-01_Dao Complaint Against Koozer).

Aki Stant is the president of COMPA (City of Maricopa Police Association); he can be reached at 480-430-3199 or via e-mail at [email protected].

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