9 sworn officers and 1 police department employee recently provided a letter to the city council and residents of Quartzsite expressing "No Confidence" in the city's police chief. The letter outlined allegations of not only using the department to further the political agenda of the chief and city council, but criminal conduct such as using the National Crime Information Center to find dirt on political opponents, and violating department policies as well. The complaining officers asked that the chief be put on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. The full text of the letter is available at:
http://www.azcops.org/userfiles/public%20letter%20for%20meeting.pdf.
The police chief and city management staff were certainly not going to sit still for their officers airing the city's dirty laundry in public. KPHO and other sources are now reporting that the majority of the police department's staff have been put on paid administrative leave (
http://www.kpho.com/story/15122209/infighting-escalates-in-quartzsite-police-department). Although the the city did not see fit to put the chief on leave pending an investigation of violating department policies, they did find it appropriate to pull most of the city's police force off the streets pending an investigation of violating department policies. The full text of the notice can be found here:
http://quartzsitemineshaft.com/Notice.pdf.
