TOMBSTONE, Ariz. (KGUN) — Dustin Escapule, the mayor of Tombstone, has announced he is asking the Arizona Attorney General to investigate the Tombstone Marshal's Office after "receiving information of possible misconduct."
"We felt as though it be best practices to reach out to a neutral agency so that the appearance of impropriety would be minimized," said CCSO Commander Bob Watkins. "So we went to the Attorney General's office and requested that they conduct a comprehensive investigation regarding the acquisition of the canine program, financial matters, contracts, things like that."
The misconduct, outlined in the Cochise County Sheriff's Office's investigation report, looking at the K9 attack— from last year.
Commander Bob Watkins, told KGUN, the report caused concern for City of Tombstone leadership, including Escapule. Watkins will serve as interim marshal.
"After that investigation was released, the leadership of the city of Tombstone, which is the mayor's office, and the City Council convened, and there was some glaring problems in that report," Watkins said. "It highlighted that the Tombstone Marshall's office should probably not have a canine program."
The K9 program was dismantled shortly after the report was released.
"The leadership of the City decided that Tombstone didn't have the proper infrastructure to support such a robust program, so they terminated the canine program," Watkins said.
Former Tombstone Marshal Jim Adams announced his resignation on Tuesday, February 25. His last day employed with the city is March 14, however, his last day in the office was February 25.
Adams informed the City of his resignation before the request for a "comprehensive investigation" was made to the Attorney General's Office.
"The Cochise County Sheriff's Office did not have anything to do with it until last week," Watkins said. "The mayor requested advice from the sheriff's office, and he wanted us to come in and investigate some things. So I can't go into the details as what the extent of that conversation was, but among them is the procurement process and the process by which those dogs were acquired.
"As soon as I started hearing about it, I said, we need to let a neutral party investigate this, because this needs to be a deep dive investigation."
The K9 that attacked one of the deputy marshals had previous attacks when it was with Border Patrol, that were not disclosed to the vendor that the Marshal's Office got the dog from.
Escapule announced in a letter posted to social media that possible misconduct was reported on February 19.
Following consultation with the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Dannels recommended that "the issues be referred to the Arizona Attorney General's Office for a comprehensive investigation."
"The city of Tombstone remains steadfast in its commitment to transparency and accountability and will disclose the findings upon the investigation's completion," the mayor said in the letter.
There isn't a timetable for how long the investigation will take.
"The Attorney General's Office is extremely busy right now, so I'm hoping shorter rather than longer (investigation)," Watkins said. "But they do excellent work, and I'm hoping that a lot of negative statements and precede preconceived notions surrounding TMO employees will be thoroughly investigated, and the employees come out righteous and find out that the situation surrounding them and allegations are false. That's what I'm hoping for."
