A battle between elected officials continues as State Senator Sylvia Allen of Snowflake responded to a recent article in The Tribune-News in which Navajo County Sheriff KC Clark accused her of being self-serving and using her political position, both as a senator and former county supervisor, to interfere with investigations and request personal favors.
The accusations arose after a senate bill was proposed by Allen that initially sought to eliminate the polygraph as part of the administrative discipline process for law enforcement officers. The Senate Bill 1467 was introduced following the resignation of her son-in-law Tim Hunt as a detention officer with the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office amid allegations that he had traded contraband for oral sex with a female inmate. Prior to his resignation, Hunt had been investigated for the incident and the polygraph administered as part of that procedure indicated that he was being deceptive when denying the incident occurred.
Although the portion of the bill eliminating the polygraph has been struck down, the section that would allow law enforcement officers 14 days to respond to the results of an administrative investigation, rather than the current three days, remains and is being considered by lawmakers.
Clark stated that he sees the bill as retaliation on Allen’s part because she was unhappy with the outcome of the investigation into Hunt’s conduct. He also believes that allowing 14 days for officers to respond after a full administrative investigation has been conducted is costly to the citizens of the state.
Allen says that she doesn’t understand why the sheriff would lash out at her regarding the bill, as her intention was to prevent other families from enduring what hers has. She does believe, however, that the incident surrounding Hunt’s resignation was fabricated by the sheriff’s office in an effort to have him removed from his position, and if he had been allowed more time to respond to allegations, that would have been revealed.
As she looked into the accusations, Allen said that she has developed other concerns regarding the sheriff’s office. “Since the allegations were brought against Tim, I have learned that something dark and wrong has been allowed to fester in my county for a long time. It is all wrapped around the drug world, the money and addictions involved,” she said. When asked to clarify that statement, Allen said that it involved the female inmates at the jail, but refused to comment further.
When informed about Allen’s remark regarding illegal activities involving female inmates at the jail, Clark responded that aside from the allegations made against Hunt, there was nothing that he was aware of, but if something should ever come up, he would welcome an independent investigation.
As far as the investigation into the allegations against Hunt, the sheriff said that he was aware that of Allen’s concern over potential bias on the part of the county, which is why an outside agency conducted the investigation. “We had nothing to do with that investigation. I handed it over to an independent agency and they determined the outcome,” he stated.
Another concern addressed by Allen was what she believes is a high employee turnover in the Navajo County Jail and the sheriff’s office, stating that low morale in a poorly run department may be to blame. She noted that as a county supervisor, nearly every human resource report submitted during a meeting of the county supervisors showed personnel leaving the sheriff’s office. “I started wondering why we had such a high turnover. In the under two years I was there, over 21 detention officers left,” commented the senator.
“Honestly, I’m shocked the number is so low. We’re no different than any other jail in the state regarding high turnover. We train officers and a couple of things happen. They get the training and then go to the DOC (Department of Corrections) because the pay is higher, or they realize the job is tougher than they expected,” stated Clark.
Allen also questions the safety of the detention officers and inmates at the jail. She believes that Hunt was targeted after he discussed safety concerns with her, which she in turn addressed with the sheriff. “I expressed my concern for the safety of the DO’s (detention officers). All that came of my conversation with the sheriff was (that) the jail commander brought Tim in and told him to stop talking to me,” she said.
Clark concedes that Hunt, who had only been at the jail for several months, had pointed out that a door had been damaged, but the damage did not involve any threat to security or the well being of officers or inmates, and that issues of that nature were going to be addressed with the current remodel and addition to the jail facility. “Each month the Arizona County Insurance Pool issues a report on workman’s comp. Very rarely is there anyone employed with Navajo County in that report. We have a high level of training that takes place here,” he replied.
Other concerns noted by Allen as a result of the investigation into her son-in-law involve the jail video recordings and the record keeping system. She notes that the jail has a recently purchased $90,000 video system, but did not catch any of the alleged misdeeds on the part of Hunt while he was employed there. “When my son-in-law was being investigated, he said, ‘Just look at the videos, I stand in line of the cameras at all time.’ Yet the commander in the investigation report said that there is no video from that night. Why, didn’t the ICS operator see that since they have visual of all cameras?” she asked.
According to Clark, the new system that Allen is referring to has not yet been installed. “It’s part of the new jail section that is being built and since that will be all digital, the cameras in the older portion of the jail will have to be upgraded,” he said. He noted that the alleged incident involving Hunt occurred in January 2014, but it was several months later that it was brought to the attention of the sheriff and the video had already been recorded over. “Even then, there are blind spots in the jail that are not visible by the cameras,” said Clark.
Allen responded that even without the tapes in hand, if there was something illegal taking place in the jail, there was staff watching the cameras at all times and she finds it difficult to believe that such activities could go unobserved if they had taken place.
Regarding the record keeping system, Allen stated that a report Hunt filed against the inmate involved in the sexual allegations is missing, and that the report would show that the inmate was retaliating against Hunt because he had written her up for possessing smuggled contraband.
While still serving as a county supervisor, Allen addressed her concerns with the sheriff and then had the county’s information technology personnel investigate, but stated that Clark shut down her efforts to get at the truth. “It was obvious then that they simply wanted Tim out of the jail, and that the main reason was their belief that his relationship with me would expose practices in the jail to a level of oversight and public awareness that they could not tolerate,” she said.
Clark noted that Allen’s claim was investigated by information technology personnel and there was no evidence of any documents missing.
According to Allen, the investigation into the missing documents occurred weeks after the request was made and allowed too much time for a document to be destroyed, something that Clark stated is not possible. “Any document, whether it was deleted or not, can be recovered from the system and nothing was recovered,” he said.
But Allen disagrees, “It wasn’t looked into as it should have been. They knew there was a problem and the requests by our lawyer for the Meta data regarding that incident was never received,” she said.
Even if Hunt had written a report on the inmate, it may not have affected the outcome, as there were several witnesses who substantiated the allegations brought against Hunt, and other inmates said he leered at them, made inappropriate comments and made gestures of a sexual nature, according to public records.
Allen went on to refute claims by Clark that offensive texts had been sent to jail employees from a disposable phone sent to her campaign office, stating that those claims were laughable. She accused Clark of being malicious when he claims that she had requested personal favors, and hypocritical, since his wife, Deputy Brenda Clark, recently received the Deputy of the Year award.
In response, the sheriff noted that his wife has been employed by the county for 32 years and is a model employee, and that he had nothing to do with her receiving that award. He also said that his wife had worked with three previous sheriffs and that because he was elected sheriff, she is not allowed to change her position at the county in order to avoid conflict.
“Facts are stubborn things,” replied Clark. “But if anyone has concerns they can make a public records request and see for themselves. I’m proud of my office and the work done by MCAT (Major Crimes and Apprehension Team).”
Senate Bill 1467 is making its way through the House and passed unanimously through the House Rules Committee on March 24.
