Apparently three police dispatchers and an officer from the Apache Junction police did not want to miss out on any barbecue fun. On May 4th members of Sgt. Clyde Allison’s squad got together for a barbecue at the patio of the police station. During the barbecue a dispatcher took a call from a citizen about what may have been a drunk driver.
Standard protocol is for the dispatcher to report the incident over the radio. But instead the dispatcher went to Officer Danny Campano to tell him in person about the call.
But Campano did not respond to the call and instead requested that the dispatch supervisor close the call out as if Campano actually went to the scene.
Campano and the supervisor received written reprimands. Two dispatchers received verbal warning since they were chatting about the unanswered call on the computers as well as with a number of officers that were on the patio for the barbecue. The squad’s sergeant was suspended for a day.
Chief Jerald Monahan said the planned barbecue was a “team-building” exercise gone bad. The squad sergeant received the harshest penalty because he permitted every member of his patrol squad to be off duty at the same time.
Leave a Reply