Melendez answers criticism

By Janet DelTufo, Assistant Editor

Police Chief Melendez

After a number of verbal attacks from the Town Hall podium, Wickenburg Police Chief Tony Melendez has decided it is time to answer his harshest critic.

On a number of occasions, resident and former Wickenburg Town Council candidate Paula Hartwell has used the “call to the public” portion of town council meetings to lodge complaints against Melendez and the Wickenburg Police Department (WPD).

By law, Melendez cannot answer Hartwell at length during this portion of the meeting. She has many times told the council that the police are not doing anything about drugs in the community, and she has also lodged additional complaints in writing to members of the council.

Hartwell again two weeks ago addressed her complaints about the police, Melendez in particular.

“I understand in my position that I am subject to public opinion,” Melendez said. “But last week it surprised and disappointed me that the mayor and the rest of the council would allow this type of attack to occur.

“What she said was untrue, almost orchestrated to some extent, and she held up her points as fact,” he added. “I felt that if I did not start responding to these public attacks, what she has to say might sound as if it is true.”

Melendez wanted to clarify what has been said in public and on paper without getting into a “he said, she said” debate. He started with two unidentified individuals Hartwell spoke of as drug dealers.

Hartwell said two weeks ago at the council meeting that the police have had no contact with these individuals who she simply refers to as drug dealers in her neighborhood. Melendez said his officers have arrested both of them, seized one of their vehicles and one has even moved out of town.

He spoke about a list of phone numbers Hartwell provided to him of people who dialed her number incorrectly and who were looking to purchase drugs. Melendez said with the information he was provided he could not prove the calls were criminal in nature. He also spoke about the length of time arrested individuals spend in jail, saying the police have no say on that matter.

“We are not the only individuals involved in this system,” he said. “There is a court, a judge and a county attorney. We do not control who stays in jail and who does not stay in jail.”

Hartwell spoke during the council meeting about drugs on local school buses. Melendez said that drugs will find their way onto the school bus from time to time, but that the Wickenburg Unified School District handles this situation and the district works well with the police department.

“We have an outstanding school board and administration, and the police department has a strong relationship with the schools,” Melendez said. “This police department has a vested interest in the school system and its students. Many of our officers have children who ride these buses. Our school buses are safe, they are monitored with cameras and drivers monitor the situation.”

Melendez also said he is currently working with school administrators on a nationwide drug awareness program that will incorporate law enforcement, the health field and families.

He also said that former WPD officer Ruben Madrid works full time at the high school, and that he does a very good job monitoring the situation.

“We have a very strong relationship with Ruben,” Melendez said.

Another item Melendez said he needed to address was Hartwell’s statements regarding him not wanting to get other law enforcement agencies involved in Wickenburg. She told the council that she has taken information to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

“We work with a number of other agencies,” Melendez said. “Right now we have one fulltime officer assigned to a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) drug task, and this task force spent a few weeks here a number of months ago and made 106 arrests. We also work with the Westside Chiefs of Police Association, the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) violent and sex offender program, Yavapai County, the DPS Gang Task Force and with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Task Force on meth labs.”

Perhaps one of Hartwell’s biggest complaints is Melendez’s resistance to utilize the Arizona Rangers to help patrol Wickenburg’s streets.

On the Arizona Rangers Web site, it states that the organization “renders, when called upon by any federal, state, county, or local law enforcement authority, such law enforcement assistance as may be required, and within the capabilities of the Arizona Rangers, but only under the direction and supervision of such authority.”

The Rangers have made presentations to the Wickenburg Town Council, and the sticking point always seems to come back to the Rangers insistence on carrying guns.

“The Arizona Rangers is a club,” Melendez said. “They (Rangers) have no investigative or police authority, and they are not certified police officers. They might carry their own insurance, but the town’s insurance company is opposed to them carrying guns on our streets and has said the town would be liable for any incident that took place. It would be against the law for us to use any person to patrol our town who is not a certified police officer.”

Melendez said that if an Arizona Ranger is interested and can qualify, he would welcome him or her to serve as a member of Wickenburg’s Citizens on Patrol.

Melendez said that there is always room for improvement within the department and ways to improve are being explored. Currently he is looking into a local recruitment program, where individuals between the ages of 14 and 20 can be groomed and developed into future WPD officers.

“An individual has to be 21 years of age to become a police officer, but things can happen before that time,” Melendez said. “These individuals can first become dispatchers, then they can go to the police academy and finally become a police officer in his or her home town. This way we can offer our youth a good job and he or she does not have to leave the community, because the community should be reflected in our police department.”

Melendez said he does plan to retire one day, but said he did not take the job as chief in 1995 as a “retirement position.”

“After 37 years of police work, why shouldn’t I retire one day?” Melendez asked. “This is my home town, and my family has been here since 1870. Like everyone else, I want to live in a safe community. But I am not king and I can’t just go out and break the laws of our constitution and justice system.

“As police officers, we are restricted by the rules of the constitution and every individual’s constitutional rights,” he added. “The public needs to know that for their safety, we are limited as to what we can do lawfully in order to serve them and to protect.”

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