I was notified by one of our retirees that there was a scoreboard at Chandler Gilbert Community College (CGCC) that was dedicated to honor the memory of Sergeant Thomas Craig, who passed away due to medical reasons on September 3, 2021. I then reached out to the school because I thought this sounded like a happy story to tell, and it turned out to be a great story! I had the pleasure to speak with Bryanne Norris, head softball coach for CGCC. Norris told me that she took over the softball program at CGCC in 2016. Shortly after taking over, she was given the ability to recruit new players to rebuild the team. She remembers going to watch a game to scout for new prospects, and this was the first time she met Craig.
Craig’s twin daughters were playing the positions of catcher and outfield that day. During the game, Norris was able to speak with Craig, who showed a lot of passion and love for the game, which influenced his daughters. Norris was able sit down with the family and discuss the girls coming to CGCC to play in its program because of their talent. One daughter committed to playing just a couple of days after the meeting; the other daughter was much different. “She made me wait before I received a commitment,” Norris recalled.
From the beginning, Craig was involved with the softball program, and not just because his daughters were playing on the team. He took time from his day to sit down with Norris to talk about ways to improve the program. This is when she began to understand Craig’s personality and passion for the game. “He always made you feel important,” she said, adding that as the new head coach she felt overwhelmed at times. But Craig was always there for support. “He believed in me.”
Alongside the support Norris received from her family, Craig was there from the start. They would discuss the team and the improvements that were needed to the dugouts and scoreboard. Craig did not hesitate and started to make telephone calls to the college administration requesting that they improve the field. He knew how important this was for the team. Those calls made a difference because the field received updated dugouts and a scoreboard. Another item of concern to him was the team’s uniforms. Craig and his family donated the money to purchase new uniforms for the whole team. Today they have six different uniform styles, and it’s all because of him.
Craig’s daughters graduated CGCC in 2019, but he continued to be an advocate for the softball program. He still attended practices and games, and was involved in the annual cornhole tournament, which has been held for the last six years. He would build cornhole boards out of wood for use and was described as a “jack of all trades.”
This story has led us to today. Even though Thomas Craig has left us, his legacy and impact on CGCC lives on. The school dedicated the scoreboard in his name. The team has pregame shirts that display a “thin blue line” flag and his badge number on the right sleeve and his initials, “TC,” on the left sleeve. The current uniform jersey top has an insignia patch on the left sleeve displaying “TC” to honor him during the game. Norris became emotional because Craig made such a substantial impact on her as a coach and on her life: “Tom, you will never be forgotten.”
#ForeverYote.
Fun for Members and Their Families
On May 22, 575 PLEA members and their families made their way to the Main Event in Avondale for Family Day. Attendees spent the morning and afternoon participating in activities such as laser tag, bowling, billiards, state-of-the-art virtual reality games and more, and catching up with fellow members and the PLEA Board and staff.
This year, in addition to a buffet lunch, all attendees enjoyed two free scoops of gelato ice cream. Members were also able to enter in a raffle for gift baskets, which included an array of items and two tickets to the 2022 Police Officers’ Ball. The raffle winners were Angel Chaparro and his wife, Stephanie, and David Salas and his wife, Dianna.
PLEA proudly partners with family entertainment company Main Event to host Family Day. The business closes its doors to the public from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to give PLEA members exclusive access to most of the facility. Main Event Sales Manager Jennifer Decker ensured that the gathering ran smoothly, providing PLEA with multiple tables, organizing the buffet lunch and even displaying a custom slideshow on the television screens throughout the venue. “We are always so pleased to be working with Main Event of Avondale. Jennifer has a soft spot for law enforcement and believes that we need more recognition,” PLEA Secretary John Maxwell says, adding that she also previously organized a fundraiser for injured Phoenix Officer Tyler Moldovan.
“Family Day was created by PLEA as a way to bring the membership and their families together annually in a safe, relaxing environment,” Maxwell says. “It has become a tradition that many members look forward to each year. We thank the members who helped make the event a success and look forward to seeing you again next year!”
For the fourth year running, PLEA Charities is hosting the Superhero 5K to benefit abused children across the Valley. The event, part of the Signature Event Series produced by Put on the Cape: A Foundation for Hope (POTC), has raised more than $20,000 in previous years for the Southwest Family Advocacy Center, which supports the special victims units in Avondale, Buckeye and Goodyear.
Scheduled for Saturday, April 9, from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Friendship Park in Avondale, the run encourages participants to dress as their favorite superhero, build a team, bring the kids and enjoy a beautiful spring day in the Valley with music and vendors, plus the City of Avondale’s KidFest occurring immediately afterward. The event is so popular that all three previous Superhero 5Ks sold out in advance, and overflow runners signed up each year.
“The event is a fun run, and anyone who wants to walk or even do one lap is welcomed,” Phoenix Police Officer Sean Reavie, the event’s creator, says. “The importance of the mission is why we all come. Our hero spotlight is the Flash, and his logo is on the T-shirt and the finisher medal.”
A longtime PLEA member, Reavie created POTC in 2019 to support special victims units across the Valley. As a former Crimes Against Children detective, he understands the needs that advocacy centers have and uses his foundation to fulfill them.
“Way back on September 1, 2015, PLEA Charities donated to my cause when I only planned one event, called Superhero September,” Reavie says. “PLEA and PLEA Charities continue to support me through their involvement, not only with the 5K, but also with our legacy event, the PLEA Superhero Shopping Spree.”
In 2021, POTC was recognized nationally as a Top Nonprofit by GreatNonprofits, and Reavie was named National Humanitarian of the Year by the Marquis Who’s Who in America organization. He gives credit where he says it’s deserved: “Without PLEA Charities donating that money to me in 2015, the second event never would have happened, and we would have been one and done right there. There were no other events scheduled, and that donation gave me a great idea as to how to continue the message.”
That second event is the now-legendary Superhero Shopping Spree, which, in the last seven years, has accounted for more than $100,000 in donations to fill toy closets, food pantries and clothing wardrobes from Buckeye to Gilbert.
Reavie points out that PLEA Charities is his biggest supporter, both financially and professionally. “The support started with previous PLEA Board members Frank Marino and Ken Crane,” he says. “And it continues with Britt London, John Maxwell, Mike Thomas, Yvette Bro and the rest of the team. They really understand the scope of my mission.”
Through the years, POTC changed both cosplay and charity by utilizing professionally trained actors to portray superheroes at its charity events. Calling this hybrid “Cause Play,” Reavie requires his team to pass a background check, receive Level 1 fingerprint clearance and take training in adverse childhood experiences. It was this attention to detail that led POTC to its biggest event during Super Bowl weekend.
“After vetting us and seeing how professional our group is, we were invited to a Super Bowl party at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles,” Reavie says. “We are on the radar of some serious people nationally, and that is really going to change things for us.”
The party was thrown by super sports agent Leigh Steinberg (whom Jerry Maguire was based on), and Reavie’s Cause Play team entertained sports and movie luminaries to great reviews. “We are already invited to their Super Bowl party in Phoenix in 2022,” Reavie says. “Great things are happening.”
After the 5K, Reavie says, planning begins for the eighth annual Superhero September Spectacular, to include events across the Valley supporting eight family advocacy centers.
“With great power comes great responsibility,” Reavie says. “We have the responsibility to do all we can for our most vulnerable victims, and make sure they can recover both physically and emotionally.”
For more information and to register for the Superhero 5K, visit putonthecape.org.
In December 9, PLEA Charities and Arizona Probation Officers Association (AZPOA) hosted the 11th annual Shop With a Cop at Kohl’s. We are grateful to Kohl’s for graciously allowing us to hold our event at its store, because as you may remember, there were many conflicts and difficulties in 2020, to say the least, that prevented us from hosting the event at a shopping location. We were able to have a fresh start for the 2021 event. After months of planning, we’re happy to report that Shop With a Cop was nothing short of incredible. Thank you in part to the Phoenix Police Department, AZPOA and the West Valley Mavericks Foundation for contributing to the event’s success.
A total of 125 children were able to attend the event. After being picked up by officers in their police cars, the children arrived at the store and were able to enjoy breakfast, which included doughnuts donated by LaMar’s Donuts, milk donated by Shamrock Farms, fresh fruit donated by Willie Itule and breakfast burritos donated by AZ Barbeque. The children anxiously waited for Blue Santa and his helper elf to arrive, by police helicopter #8555 no less. All the officers and children stood at the front of the store to watch a short demonstration by the Phoenix Police K-9 unit as they waited for Santa.
Blue Santa landed and brought a cheerful holiday greeting to all the children. Inside the store, children had the opportunity to take a photo with Blue Santa and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. It was so heartwarming to see all of the children smiling from ear to ear waiting for their turn to meet Santa.
Then the shopping began. Each child was provided with a goodie bag filled with more holiday cheer. Domino’s, the Christmas Angel Sponsor for the event, gave the children gift cards to share with their family members. Each child submitted a wish list of items, and officers were given their respective child’s list to help them shop. They were allowed to spend $150 per child, and in some cases our officers used their own money to cover the spending that was over the allotted amount.
After the shopping was finished, the officers and children went outside to wrap gifts under covered canopies and portable heaters provided by Surprise Rental. Before all the children left, they had the opportunity enjoy ice cream from the Phoenix Police ice cream truck and see the BearCat tactical vehicle used by the Department’s Special Assignments Unit (SAU). Duncan and Sons Lines also had two semi-trucks on display for kids to climb into, and the kids were even given a chance to blow the trucks’ air horns. The officers then returned the children back to their families.
The event would not have been possible without support from the following sponsors:
- Presenting Sponsors: West Valley Mavericks Foundation and Duncan and Sons Lines, Inc.
- Christmas Angel Sponsor: Domino’s
- In-kind donors: LaMar’s Donuts, AZ Barbeque, Kiwanis Club International, Fantastic Fire Department, Willie Itule, AMICI Catering, Phoenix Police Museum, Shamrock Farms and Kohl’s
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the November 2021 issue of American Police Beat and is reprinted with permission.
In 2014, a police shooting of a young man in Ferguson, Missouri, was followed by protests and unrest across the country. As time passed, “community policing” became a common phrase, both within the law enforcement community and without. As the nation grappled with questions that had no easy answers, community policing became a non-controversial, go-to term that community leaders, politicians and police administrators all seemed to be able to get behind. The term became a sort of panacea that promised to hold all the answers necessary to bridge the void between police and their communities. It’s a pattern that’s been repeated often in the wake of controversial use-of-force incidents ever since. When controversy strikes, politicians and community leaders all throw out the concept as their solution to the problem of the hour. It’s fair to ask, however, whether most of the practice’s proponents really even know what community policing is. More importantly, can it really deliver all that its advocates promise?
Community policing isn’t a program; it’s a philosophy, a way that an agency chooses to approach policing.
What Is Community Policing?
Community policing focuses on community relationships, organizational structure and problem-solving to build safer communities. In far too many cases, the concept is relegated to a special unit in a police department that spends their time doing public relations with the community. Community policing isn’t a program; it’s a philosophy, a way that an agency chooses to approach policing.
Community policing advocates relationships. It achieves this in myriad ways. Alternative forms of patrol (such as on foot or bicycle) are embraced in community policing. Getting out of the car has been shown to have promising effects on community perception of officers and thus can go a long way toward bridging the gap between an agency and those it serves.
Community policing also focuses on giving officers greater discretion to handle situations in ways that help build better relationships with members of the community. One of the ways it accomplishes this is through a “flat” command structure. A flat command structure decentralizes authority and pushes decision-making power down to officers on the streets. It’s based on the idea that officers closer to the streets (and further from the office) are better equipped to make decisions that best handle situations they encounter. We’ve all found ourselves in a situation at some office where the person at the front desk couldn’t make a common-sense decision to help us, because they needed permission from someone far away at corporate. That’s bureaucracy in action. Community policing pushes authority down closer to the streets in order to help avoid those situations.
While this is far from an adequate summary of the aspects of community policing, an emphasis on officers’ relationships with community members and additional discretion for officers are certainly major aspects of the philosophy.
Where Did It Come From?
To truly understand something, it’s often necessary to know the history behind it.
In the early 1900s, law enforcement was in what many scholars call the “Political Era” of policing. The services you got from law enforcement (like many other sectors of government) largely depended on who you knew. Political bosses were often the real driving forces behind police management decisions. Whether you lived in a big city or a small town, there was a good chance that a handful of local (or even regional) power brokers were pulling the strings of your government (including its police department).
The Political Era would meet its match in the form of the Progressive Movement. This same movement that aimed to clean up corporations with laws and regulations also placed an emphasis on reforming governmental systems. It’s fitting, then, that their efforts in the policing arena led to what is often known as the “Reform Model,” also called the “Professional Model.” Where Political Era policing was marked by handling situations based on relationships (who you knew determined how you were treated), Professional Model policing placed emphasis on rules and uniformity. Think Joe Friday from Dragnet (“Just the facts, ma’am!”). Professionalization advocates like August Vollmer and O.W. Wilson called for things like improved training. Reform leaders also found a new ally in the form of #8600 advancing technology. Reformers saw that an officer’s contact with the public on their daily beat could lead to corrupting relationships. Thanks to advancing technology, they were able to safely tuck officers away in the ever-more-common automobile. In the safety of an auto-bubble, they were sure to be free from the temptations of partiality that came when they built relationships with those they were paid to police. Reformers also developed centralized command structures, so that supervisors could ensure officers were adequately controlled and held accountable. Policies were put in place to help ensure that people were being treated equitably.
When viewed through the metric of relationships and accountability, every model hence has been (to some degree) an iteration of either the Political or Professional Model.
In the 1960s, the riots and unrest that swept the nation revealed some of the shortcomings of the Professional Model. While the insulating nature of the model had helped address corruption, it also led to an “us versus them” mentality (both in law enforcement agencies and their communities). The centralization of decision-making authority had also contributed to a more militaristic-looking approach to policing. The intentional avoidance of community relationships had led to better policing in many ways, but it had also created rifts between cops and their communities.
This, of course is, where discussion of factors that would eventually become the community policing philosophy came from. Law enforcement found itself largely alienated from the communities it was tasked to serve. The concept of community policing aims to minimize that separation.
Is There a Downside?
Most of the major aspects of community policing address some fault in the Professional Model. The irony is that these issues didn’t occur by accident. Officers were put in cars on purpose. The Professional Model encouraged them to avoid entangling relationships with the public. Decision-making authority was purposely centralized away from officers on the streets. The Professional Model called for policies, procedures and centralized chains of command to help provide accountability and ensure an ethical, accountable police force. These reforms almost certainly contributed to the sense of separation that community policing aims to address.
That being said, those Professional Model practices were put into place for a reason. They were necessary. Corruption was (and always will be) a problem. Accountability was (and always will be) an absolute necessity in policing. In fact, these are some of the very things that activists are calling for right now. Many state governments are even taking statutory steps to improve accountability.
There will always, by necessity, be a tension between these metrics. Increased accountability measures will always detract from street-level officer discretion. Increased emphasis on relationships will, of course, open the door to the potential for the temptation to bend the rules for a friend. There is likely no simple answer about where our actions should fall on these scales. Like many things in life, it’s less a hard line and more a tension we have to live in and constantly evaluate.
That’s not to say that one should be abandoned for another; quite the contrary. It’s simply a fact that has to be acknowledged as part of the conversation surrounding community policing.
Some activists want police to run their body cams every single moment of their shift. Are these same activists willing to abandon the call for community policing? Body cams used 24/7 are a great policy for accountability, but any cop on the street knows that such a practice would wreak havoc on their efforts to build relationships with citizens who are already wary of police interaction.
Some activists have called for police to use increased discretion in their arrest decisions (such as giving a kid a break to avoid putting them into the system). There’s a great argument to be made for this. But will those same activists be OK with such discretion if an officer chooses to arrest their relative, but a different officer lets a different kid off with a simple warning? That is, after all, the inevitable result of discretion. These are how the realities of these metrics play out in reality. Things are rarely as simple on the streets as they are in the ivory tower.
The reformers who pushed policing out of the Political Era and into the Professional Era are to be lauded for their accomplishments. The changes they made were beyond necessary; they were essential. But sometimes, in the passion of a movement, it’s easy to overlook the unintended consequences of the decisions we make. Accountability and discretion will always happen on a sliding scale, with each on opposite ends. The same is true for relationships and corruption potential. Community policing holds great promise to cure what ails many law enforcement agencies and their communities. But it can only work if cops and their communities can implement it without forgetting the mistakes made by the reform movement. Specific policy decisions need to be talked through and implemented amid much debate and discussion, not rammed through in a knee-jerk reaction. The potential benefit of each decision needs to be weighed against unintended costs.
Life is all about balance, and policing is no exception.
From October 13 to 17, PLEA joined law enforcement agencies around the country during National Police Weekend to recognize and honor our fallen heroes who died in the line of duty. This year, 701 new names — including Phoenix Police Commander Greg Carnicle (EOW: March 29, 2020) and Officer Paul Rutherford (EOW: March 21, 2019) — were formally dedicated on October 15 during the 33rd Annual Candlelight Vigil.
In 2020, 307 officers — 135 who were killed in 2019, plus 172 who died in previous years — were added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. And in 2021, 394 officers — 295 who were killed in 2020 (182 of those fatalities are related to COVID-19), plus 99 who died in previous years — were added to the memorial.
The vigil, which was held on the National Mall and produced by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, was a time for officers, family members, survivors and supporters to mourn for their fallen heroes and pay tribute to the sacrifices they made. For as far as the eye could see, thousands of candles burned brightly as each attendee reflected on stories and memories of their fallen hero.
After two postponed National Police Week gatherings in May 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic restrictions, the opportunity to travel to our nation’s capital and finally gather again was a special moment cherished by all.
There were several other events throughout the weekend that also honored our fallen. On October 13, law enforcement leaders and members of the Police Unity Tour completed their 300-mile journey to honor those who fell in the line of duty. The annual “ride for those that died” event paid tribute to fallen officers, as men and women completed their trip to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. The ride started in New Jersey before continuing to Wilmington, Delaware, and Annapolis, Maryland. The final leg of the trip was a 60-mile journey to the Memorial in Washington, D.C.
On October 16, the National Fraternal Order of Police and the National Fraternal Order of Police Auxiliary hosted the annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service on the west front lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The service featured emotional tributes from various speakers and performers, and many family members of the fallen placed a flower in the memorial wreath as their loved ones’ names were read. Following the service, a wreath-laying ceremony took place at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
We will never forget!