SOUTH TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The City of South Tucson is a small city, with a small police force—and that police force is taking some heat for how it responded to reports of a gun near a school.
City of South Tucson Police concede they made the wrong call when they got a call about a man with a gun across the street from Mission View Elementary School.
The City of South Tucson is only about 1.2 square miles. So why did it take South Tucson Police two hours to respond to a call of a gun near a school?
South Tucson Police Chief Danny Denogean says, “We own this. We should have had a better response to that call. There's no debating that. We needed to get there quicker.”
Chief Denogean says last Tuesday a call came in about 7:05 a.m. saying that men across from Mission View Elementary were arguing over a possible stolen car.
About 7:30 a school monitor reported one of the men might have a gun. But South Tucson’s Chief says officers arrived at 9:05. Once there they did not find a gun.
Eliana has a child at the school. She did not want to show her face or use her real name.
She says, “South Tucson Police Department took forever to get here. He could have actually come inside the school and pretty much shot everybody and he would have got the main ones in the office because the office is right there, right by the door from the entrance.”
Some parents are so upset they posted an on-line petition calling for better school security.
Chief Denogean says his department is so short staffed he only has two officers per shift. They were both headed to the school when they spotted a suspect in some high dollar electronics thefts. The Chief says at the time, the officers only knew the call was a low priority, possible car theft. They both stopped to arrest the suspect in the electronics thefts.
The Chief says South Tucson could and should have asked Tucson Police for backup at the school.
He says the real long term solution is hiring more officers but it’s especially hard for South Tucson to fill those open slots.
“The City of South Tucson is very financially strapped. When it comes to pay. We're in the whole state, if not the lowest, second third to lowest. So it's very hard to recruit people to come here when the pay isn't all that great. And then you have all the issues going around in the country. You just have less people wanting to become police officers than at any time I can remember.”
——-
Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
