Every day in Marana, a web of visible and invisible systems operates behind the scenes. Officers patrol the streets. Engineers plan out the roads. Accountants balance the budget. You, the taxpayer, trust us to keep this machine running. A few times each year, we’ll be sharing how that happens, profiling each of these departments, pulling back the veil to reveal what makes Marana’s government tick. We hope that by taking you behind the scenes, you’ll not only gain a deeper understanding of how your government functions, but also help us improve by sharing your perspectives on these processes. Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoy this Marana Newsroom original series, Townies.
***
Tuesday, March 22, 2016. 2:35 p.m. Marana High School
It’s passing period. Students crisscross the campus, some hurrying to make it on time to their next class, others casually enjoying a few brief moments in the sun. Coleman Hunter, the School Resource Officer, is standing in the quad, keeping a watchful eye over the students as they transition into the final period of the school day.
So far, this has been a normal day at MHS, if any day at a high school can be considered normal. The weather is mild, midterm season is over, and finals are still weeks away. It’s primary day in Arizona, but so far, the fever of the 2016 election season hasn’t affected the school day. The school is a polling place, and has been for years, but the polling booths are kept entirely separate from the students.
In the front office, the receptionist answers the phone that never seems to stop ringing. At the other end of the line, a voice urgently pushes his message through the receiver. There’s a bomb in the library, she hears. And then nothing. The voice is gone. Within seconds, emergency responders are on their way.
***
Tuesday, March 22, 2016. 3:15 p.m. Sandario Road, south of Marana Regional Airport
“99.9% of bomb threats are false alarms,” explains Sergeant Chris Warren, Public Information Officer for the Marana Police Department. “But we still treat every threat as if it were that 0.1%”
This is good news not only for Marana High School, but also for the other government agencies across the state which also received bomb threats on March 22. Both the Pima County Attorney’s Office and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office got them, and both took hours to investigate and resolve. By the end of the day, every threat would prove unsubstantiated. But at 3:15 p.m., the Marana Police Department doesn’t know that yet.
Sergeant Warren is currently driving down Sandario Road towards Marana High School in an unmarked police cruiser. Don’t mistake his calm demeanor for a lack of urgency, though. The odometer ticks above 70 miles per hour. The speed limit is 55.
Minutes earlier, he’d been listening to the police radio traffic in his office. His door opens into the Dispatch Center for the Marana Police Department. At all hours, this communications hub buzzes with activity. If you call 9-1-1 in Marana, this is where they pick up the phone.
Grace Neal has just answered a call. Immediately, she begins punching codes into her elaborate computer terminal. “1089 at Marana High School.” “Bomb threat.” “Officer Hunter on the scene.” “Sgt. Terry Evans en route.” Undercover officers, Sergeant Steve Johnson, and Lieutenant Tim Brunenkant will quickly join them. Grace coordinates all this without leaving her seat.
“As a dispatcher, you have to communicate an incredible amount of information in practically no time at all,” explains Sheila Blevins from over Grace’s shoulder. “You have to simultaneously listen to the caller, evaluate the appropriate response, and start alerting the right officers.” Sheila is one of the telecommunications managers of the Dispatch Center, and she should know about communications. She’s been at this job for 29 years.
“I started out as a pre-school teacher,” she said of her decision to enter the field. “The parent of one of my students was an officer, so I decided to go on a ride-along one day. As we patrolled and listened to the police radio, I started to think I could be a dispatcher.”
One skill from Sheila’s teaching days transferred usefully into dispatching: tone. “The tone of your voice at the beginning of the call lays the groundwork for the rest of the interaction. It sets the framework for that caller’s whole experience. If they don’t think I’m taking them seriously, then they’ll channel that frustration onto the responding officer. That can quickly escalate into a dangerous situation. As dispatchers, our voices need to convey neutrality and composure.”
Unsurprisingly, it turns out, tone is just as important for officers on the ground as it is for dispatchers in the Communications Center.
***
Tuesday, March 22, 2016. 2:37 p.m. Marana High School
The crowd of administrators and staff is growing thick. In the middle of it, Officer Hunter confers with Principal David Mandel and his senior leadership team. What’s the next step? Miles away, Grace Neal is starting to dispatch officers and Chris Warren is getting ready to drive to the school, but right now, this group needs to make a decision. Should they evacuate the school?
Yes, urges the school leadership team. At 2:40 p.m., they pulled the fire alarm. Students started pouring out of the campus.
“It’s such a difficult decision,” explains Officer Hunter several hours later. “I’m here to serve as a resource, to provide that law enforcement perspective.”
For Officer Hunter, this was far from his first brush with high pressure decision-making. In fact, this day’s events at MHS occurred almost exactly a year after he faced an entirely different kind of emergency.
***
Saturday, March 14, 2015. 10:00 p.m. Iris O. Dewhirst Pima Canyon Trailhead, Catalina Foothills
374 days before Officer Hunter helped manage a bomb threat at Marana High School, he parked at a dark trailhead north of Tucson. A few hours later, Pima County sheriffs contact the Marana Police Department. A County deputy had just read a note left on his car indicating that Officer Hunter, off-duty, had gone up the trail to assist hikers who had become stranded on the rocky, rugged path. Limited reception prevented him from using a more sophisticated communication channel to alert others of his whereabouts, but the urgency of the moment prevented him from delaying any longer. One of the stranded hikers was his mother.
Pima Canyon Trail is a favorite among outdoor enthusiasts. It challenges hikers to wind their way up the steep canyon walls in a front-range pocket of the Santa Catalina Mountains. A narrow path cuts through thick groves of thorny foliage; one step off the path and a careless hiker risks embedding painful spines deep under the skin. In just over four miles, the trail climbs over 3000 feet, ending near the summit of Mt. Kimball. Elevation: 7300 feet. At this altitude, the mild temperature of a March night in Marana drops rapidly, putting tired and hungry hikers at risk of hypothermia. Officer Hunter knew all this when he had arrived at the trailhead and he knew there was no time to waste. As the sun set behind him and as the canyon gradually receded with the light, he began his ascent.
At 11 p.m., Officer Hunter’s wife received a text message. Her husband had located his mother and her friend, and the group was making its way off the mountain. The two hikers had been on the trail since 6:00 a.m. that morning. Seventeen hours later, they still were. At 2:00 a.m., Officer Hunter’s wife received a second message: “It looks like it’s going to be an all-nighter.” MPD attempted again and again to contact their officer, but it soon became readily apparent that his cell phone was now entirely out of range.
By this time, Marana Officers Kevin Trapp and Renee Huerta had arrived at the trailhead. Concerned for their colleague’s safety, they requested permission to venture into the canyon. At 5:00 a.m., they received that permission and started their journey.
Within hours, Officers Trapp and Huerta had located the exhausted group, provided them with food and water, and relayed their position to their sergeant via police radio. They then slowly and carefully escorted the group down the trail. At 11:00 a.m., 29 hours after the hikers had originally set out, they returned to safety.
Officers Hunter, Trapp, and Huerta made a series of challenging decisions in those dark hours. In the fleeting moments of indecision, they had no time to analyze all the costs and benefits of waiting for back-up versus heading up the trail. They depended on their training to make the right choice quickly. For an officer, it’s a tremendous responsibility. Sometimes, they’re wrong. More often, they’re right. How Marana prepares its officers for these moments is of the utmost importance, and it doesn’t happen quickly or easily or automatically.
For many officers, it starts while they’re still in high school.
***
Monday, July 20, 2015. 4:12 p.m. Marana Municipal Complex courtyard
“One, two, three, four.”
Hands grip the hot soil. The sun bears down, testing their commitment. Nothing could possibly be worth this level of exhaustion.
“Five, six, seven, eight.”
The exercise is more a test of mental resilience than physical strength. Can they keep up? Do they have what it takes?
“Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.”
They’re counting desperate gasps for air as much as they’re counting push-ups.
“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.”
Drops of sweat pool on the grass.
“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”
Down. Finished. Shaking. Exhilarated.
The summer routine for the Marana Explorers Post #77 can be punishing. By the time the young men and women are a couple weeks into the program, it feels anything but voluntary. Did they really choose to sign up for this of their own free will? What could have possessed them to pursue this extracurricular? Was it for fun? Is this fun? This is not fun.
Every year, the Marana Explorers program accepts a new class of aspiring law enforcement officers. Participants are as young as 14 and as old as 20. They want to learn more about what it means to be a public servant. They like the idea of ensuring the safety of their community. They love the camaraderie that’s inherent to this kind of work. All that sounds great on paper. But how does that work out in practice?
It turns out, the life of a police officer can be excruciating. Doing twenty push-ups under the hot summer sun is one thing. Doing twenty push-ups, followed by crunches, pull-ups, and long-distance running is quite another. Knowing that every day, for weeks on end, that’s all you’ll be doing? Therein lies the true test of endurance. Not everyone makes it through. At the end of the summer, their class has fewer participants than they did at the beginning. Sometimes, that’s what happens.
Those who do make it, though, experience far more than tests of strength and stamina. In 2015, Officers Kevin Litten, Jose de la Torre, Kevin Madden, and Renee Huerta (of the trail) organized “Night Moves,” a scenario-based nocturnal event for the Explorers. As “officers,” these young men and women responded to high-risk traffic stops, civilians in distress, and various other police scenarios. They had to use law enforcement radio codes to communicate. They were expected to know the protocol for every threat. They had to remain steady while everything around them shook.
“It’s a powerful experience for the Explorers,” remarks Officer Litten. “It gives them the chance to use the training we have given them in a real-world situation. It also gives them a small taste of what their lives could be like if they continued down this path.”
“Because I went through the Explorer program myself,” explains Officer Gabe Tapia, “I knew what this culture was like from the get-go. This gave me an edge in the academy. Other recruits didn’t have that experience, but I did.”
Officer Tapia is referencing an idea that comes up frequently in conversations about police. He tries to describe the culture of this environment. When people describe police culture, they’re often talking about many different things. When Officer Tapia references that nebulous concept, one thing he means is the notion of chain-of-command.
“When I was a leader with the Explorers, I had to tell some of the younger participants to shine their shoes better, or march in a straighter line. The first time I had to do that, it felt weird. But what that experience did, though, was prepare me to function within the internal hierarchy of the Marana Police Department.
“Take small unit tactics, for example. That’s when we have to execute a maneuver as a small team quickly, accurately, and automatically.” Officer Tapia sees a number of connections between what he learned when he was younger and the work he’s doing today.
“Let’s say a suspect is running from an officer. We’ve got to set a perimeter, and each officer must contain his or her section. In that moment, I need to do exactly what my superior tells me, and if I’m the superior, I need my team to follow my instructions without hesitation. If I’m not comfortable with telling them what to do, I put the whole team in danger. The biggest thing here is connecting teamwork with discipline. It started when I had to tell an Explorer to shine his shoes better, and today, that translates into a meaningful skill which I rely on.”
