When Chad Kasmar became Tucson police chief at the end of 2021, he said his department was contending with complicated community issues including an uptick in homicides and increasing overdose deaths, as well as a dwindling police force.
A year later, the landscape is similar and perhaps even more complicated. Gun violence, drug misuse and homelessness are on the rise, and Tucson has seen a significant increase in traffic fatalities — an area Kasmar said he intended to prioritize after taking over as chief.
Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar
But there have also been improvements: Homicides and violent crimes decreased in 2022, as did property crimes.
The police department created a wellness division to address officers’ constant exposure to trauma, and increased staffing on its alternative response teams, which respond to situations in which a commissioned officer is not needed.
Kasmar is clear that he did not consider 2022 a success, but remains optimistic about the challenges the Tucson Police Department will address in 2023, including gun crimes, narcotics, staffing and more.
“The things that we’re talking about, I’m not going to call success on any of them, because they’re all works in progress,” he said in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star. “When I think I’ve gotten to a successful place, I’ll be retiring. And that could take a couple years or it could take a decade or it could take me not being here when those things come to fruition.”
Tucson Police Officer Ruben Herrera pulls over a vehicle for a traffic violation while his partner, Lead Police Officer Robert Cormier, approaches another vehicle pulled over on S. Stone Ave. on Feb. 3.
Traffic fatalities
At the start of his tenure as chief, Kasmar said TPD would focus on traffic enforcement, which previous chief Chris Magnus eased up on due to a shortage of officers.
In 2021, the city recorded 86 traffic fatalities, down slightly from 87 the year before.
“We are not going to tolerate another year of 80-plus fatalities in our community,” Kasmar had told the Star a year ago. “You have more odds of being a victim from a vehicular accident, whether you’re driving or you’re a pedestrian or you’re on a bicycle, than you do of being the victim of a violent crime.”
Despite an increase in citations, the dedication of 19 officers to the motor unit, and patrol officers assisting with traffic enforcement, fatalities peaked at 96 in 2022, dashing Kasmar’s hopes that increased enforcement would lead to decreased deaths.
In 2022, officers issued 23,659 criminal and civil citations, according to data provided by TPD. That number was 20.5% higher than in 2021, but nearly 32% lower than the five-year average.
An additional 2,970 written warnings and 5,091 verbal warnings brought the number of drivers alerted about traffic infractions to nearly 30,000.
“Accountability has to be a component of any holistic solution. When there is a motor officer behind you, even if you’re a police officer, you pay attention to your driving,” Kasmar said.
Kasmar said he hasn’t asked staff to write more tickets, but rather to make contact and have the necessary conversations with drivers. He said traffic enforcement will continue to be a priority.
“We made an intentional investment in resources and I wish it had had a larger impact,” Kasmar said. “The reality in this country is that no one has figured out how to solve traffic fatalities. It’s a really complex problem that involves environmental issues and human behavior.”
He said increasing lighting on city streets, including neighborhoods, is important to improving road safety, and that LED lights and other types of technology can provide safety without affecting views of the night skies.
It’s also important for drivers to follow traffic laws and model that behavior for children who are learning to drive or will be future drivers, he said.
“Are parents modeling behavior and is their phone in their glove box away from them? The answer is no,” he said. “I’m a violator of that too sometimes and I even get scolded by my wife to set a better example for my kids, one of whom drives. We all have to do better at that.”
He encouraged drivers to slow down, avoid engaging with aggressive drivers, and to stay on main streets at night.
“You do not want to be distracted on a cell phone and take the life of another human being, even if they’re jaywalking,” Kasmar said. “It’s a horrific experience for everybody involved, not just the family member who loses someone.”
Substance use, overdose deaths
Data from the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office showed that 50% of the 70 pedestrians killed in Pima County in 2022 were crossing the street outside of a crosswalk and 74% of victims tested positive for narcotics or alcohol. Of that group, 72% were positive for methamphetamine, 53% were positive for fentanyl and 38% had alcohol in their system.
The city of Tucson accounted for 49 of the 70 pedestrian deaths in 2022.
Ana Beltran, a crime scene specialist with the Tucson Police Department at a crash involving a vehicle and motorcycle at N. Stone Ave. & W. Prince Rd. on September 8, 2022.
Increasing narcotics use, including combined use of opiates and methamphetamine, is a contributor to the near doubling of pedestrian fatalities from last year and the “explosion” of the homeless population, Kasmar said.
He added that fentanyl is making its way into the country from China and Mexico at a much higher volume than it’s being produced stateside.
With many U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents relocated from ports of entries to Yuma and El Paso to help with migrant surges, it’s become easier for drugs to enter the country on a person’s body, Kasmar said. On a recent visit to the border, he said, he watched people come across with no CBP officer in sight for four hours.
“Not to say that we’re not finding evidence that those things are being produced here too, but the scale of it is being manufactured elsewhere and snuck across the border,” Kasmar said. “Being a border city, the data is there ... that a high population of fentanyl is coming through the Arizona corridor.”
Tucson Police Department Chief Chad Kasmar announced Monday that Tucson has been selected for the U.S. Department of Justice National Public Safety Partnership (PSP) program. Video by Pascal Albright / Arizona Daily Star
Even though the majority of the fentanyl doesn’t stay in Tucson, if it’s traveling through here, that makes it accessible and cheap, he said.
According to data from the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, 98% of overdose deaths in Pima County last year were accidental. Among people who overdosed, 73% of the men died compared to 27% of the women.
People between the ages of 50 and 59 also made up the majority of fatal overdoses in 2022, the data shows.
Fentanyl deaths slightly decreased from 298 cases in 2021 to 271 cases. In those cases, 98% of the deaths were accidents.
Most victims in fentanyl deaths this year were men and individuals in the 30-39 age group.
While there was also a decrease in heroin deaths, meth and cocaine deaths increased. For the majority of those cases, the manner of death was accidental, medical examiner’s data shows.
Treatment and jail options
Despite the increase in substance use they’re seeing, TPD officers have been using their discretionary option to deflect a person from jail to treatment less frequently.
There were 280 deflections in 2022, down nearly 50% from the year before. The 2,900 deflection-eligible arrests marked an increase of 25% from 2021. Of those 2,900 arrests, 90.4% were possession charges and less than 10% involved drug sales charges, TPD data shows.
But officers aren’t just arresting and deflecting people, they’re also saving lives, Kasmar said, adding that officers used Narcan, an opioid-reversing medication, 200 times in the last year.
Arrest alone isn’t the solution, he contended.
“No person who is addicted to fentanyl or methamphetamine will go to jail and come out free from their addiction,” Kasmar said. “Sometimes people aren’t ready for (deflection,) so I’m challenging people to try to get people to go to deflection. If they don’t want to go to deflection, the next best step is arrest.”
It’s the next best step not necessarily to lead to incarceration, Kasmar said, but if it leads to a person’s participation in one of the court- or county attorney-based diversion or post-conviction programs.
He called deflection the best and most thoughtful response to addiction, but said he’s under extreme pressure from the community to address substance use issues in a timely manner.
Violent crimes, firearm deaths
There were 4% fewer homicides nationwide in 2022 than 2021, according to the Council on Criminal Justice, which collects monthly homicide data from 27 cities. The national rate remained 34% higher than in 2019, the year before the pandemic began, the study showed.
In Tucson, there were 67 homicide cases — some that included multiple fatalities — equating to a total of 75 victims in 2022.
Homicides in the city decreased by nine from the year before, but were up 12 from TPD’s five-year average.
There were 3,461 violent crimes reported in 2022, down 5% from the year before.
But nonfatal gun-related crimes increased 19% from 2021 to 2022, to 870.
Medical examiner’s data shows most firearm deaths in Pima County last year were due to suicide. Suicide was the cause of 62% of firearm deaths while homicides made up 36%.
In 2021, suicide was the cause of 57% of firearm deaths and homicides made up 41%.
Of the victims in firearm deaths, 85% were men and 15% were women. A majority of firearm victims were between the ages of 20 and 29, the data shows. Compared to 2021, the firearm victim demographics are about the same.
Community members can help reduce gun crime in the city by making sure their firearms are secure inside their homes, the chief said. More than 800 guns were reported stolen within city limits last year, many from vehicles, Kasmar said.
“Parents need to talk to their young adults about firearms,” he said. “We are still seeing young men be involved in disputes and conflicts that used to be handled verbally or with a physical altercation (but) now are going to firearm incidents.”
Evidence-based policing
TPD has increased its use of data and expanded its evidence-led policing programs. These programs are guided by scientific research, evaluation and analysis, similar to evidence-based medicine.
In Tucson, TPD is using a handful of evidence-based methods, including problem oriented precision policing, place network investigations, the creation of an open camera registry, and more.
Problem oriented precision policing — often referred to as hotspot policing — is the longest running recognized evidence-based policing practice.
In Tucson, there are more than 3,000 planned officer check-ins each month in eight of the city’s most violent areas. The idea behind this method is that the presence of police officers reduces the rate that crimes are committed, and crimes of opportunity don’t usually get displaced to other areas where police are not present.
TPD is conducting a study on its use of this practice, comparing crime in these eight areas to crime in similar areas that do not have an increased police presence.
Place network investigations were implemented in three locations last year, with their use resulting in a 20% to 50% reduction in a research-based violent index score across the three sites.
Place network investigations involve disrupting networks in areas with high levels of violent crime with methods that are not arrest-based. This involves working with other city departments, including housing, code enforcement and more.
“There’s no substitute for just a well-trained, hard working, connected police officer who does rely on job knowledge and instinct and doing a great job. That part of our job will never go away,” Kasmar said. “Evidence-led policing doesn’t change that, it just really highlights and focuses that.”
The department will increase the use of evidence-based policing through new methods including analysis of social media networks, focusing crime deterrence efforts in specific areas, and implementing violence-interruption strategies, thanks to a handful of grants and the creation of new positions.
TPD recently received a federal grant that will allow it to hire two full-time social media analysts, who will work to identify high-risk groups and people through social media posts.
A second federal grant will fund five “violence interrupters,” who will work closely with the analysts as well as with the newly hired violence prevention coordinator, who will help develop and carry out strategies.
The department also maintains a camera registry that allows residents and business owners to voluntarily register surveillance cameras with TPD. This doesn’t give the department access to the cameras, but makes them aware a camera exists in the event they are investigating a crime in or around the neighborhood.
“Ring devices work. We solve a lot of crimes when community allows us to have access to their cameras,” Kasmar said. “We solve a lot of homicides and traffic fatalities with that.”
A Tucson Police officer puts up crime scene tape around at an officer-involved shooting near S. Prudence Rd. and E. Broadway Blvd on April 3, 2022.
Staffing and officer wellness
Like many employers, TPD has more open positions than it’s able to fill, Kasmar said, adding that the vacancies haven’t translated to a threat to public safety.
“Can we keep the community safe with the collective resources that we have? Yes,” he said. “Are they going to wait longer than we’d like them to? Yes. But it’s scale. The more we scale up, the better responses we’re going to have.”
TPD employs a little more than 1,100 people, of which 736 are sworn officers.
In the past year, the department was able to stabilize attrition, reducing the rate from 5% to 1%, and grew the department by 5%, Kasmar said.
This included the creation of more community service officer (CSO) positions, noncommissioned staff members who respond to situations in which a police officer isn’t needed, and expanding the roles and responsibilities of CSOs. There are now 68 CSOs on staff, with another 41 undergoing field training and 36 applicants in the background checking process.
The department has also been successful in retaining experienced officers, with 11 of 12 retirement-eligible officers agreeing to an extension before they begin the Deferred Retirement Option Plan program. The program allows public safety employees to receive a one-time lump sum payment at the time of their retirement, in addition to their monthly retirement benefits.
“Nine months of training does not equip a brand new officer for all of the things they’re gong to face at the level of perfection that this community expects from our staff,” Kasmar said. “When we have a 20-plus-year person that we can retain for two more years, that’s a big deal.”
The department also launched a wellness division for the first time, has integrated wellness content into the training academy, and is working with a facility in Sonoita called Boulder Crest Foundation to offer post-traumatic growth training to its employees.
The program is voluntary, but TPD has a waitlist of officers wanting to participate and to develop a skillset to deal with trauma and its lingering effects.
“We can do a better job of (equipping staff with) skill sets and coping mechanisms where you actually grow from those experiences versus than struggle within those experiences,” Kasmar said. “The movement that is upon us is investing in the staff so they feel a sense of trust and connection internally.”
Dealing with root causes
Kasmar said the key to handling the complicated situations Tucson and surrounding areas are facing is addressing the root causes, which in most cases include drug misuse and a lack of access to stable housing.
When a person’s family decides they are no longer willing to help them deal with social or behavioral issues, it falls on the government to step in and help, Kasmar said. Engaging someone in treatment or services and ensuring they continue to show up is not a simple feat, he said, adding that he thinks people tend to simplify the challenges local government and Tucson’s nonprofits are asked to take on.
Kasmar said it’s important to treat the problem and not the symptoms and look at underlying causes. In many cases, a person is shoplifting to support a narcotics habit, and if the demand isn’t there, the supply wouldn’t be there either, he said.
Building the force
In terms of staffing, Kasmar plans to increase community engagement to help guide children and teens into careers in law enforcement, saying he encourages his officers to engage with kids in order to build relationships and positive perceptions of police. He said the department can’t solve its staffing problem without the community’s help.
But he wants to take that a step further and begin recruiting like a college sports team, reaching out to school leaders and asking them to identify the top 10% of students who don’t have the means to go to college and might be interested in a career as a community service or police officer.
“Somebody from the highest levels from the leadership team, and maybe even me, goes and spends a Saturday morning or afternoon with a binder of information and says, ‘Here’s a life we can provide to your child, not to mention they could be the bread winner to this family as soon as they get out of the academy,’” Kasmar said.
There are also plans to increase roles for civilians within the department, including a civilian investigator position open to people with certain types of degrees or job experience.
“You’re not going to have to wear a gun and badge, you won’t have to arrest and you won’t go to court,” the chief said, adding that TPD will continue to work alongside the city’s other alternative response teams, housed in the Community Safety Health and Wellness program. “It’s a whole other workforce that we can recruit for.”
With the recent expiration of the Proposition 101 sales tax that provided $15 million each to TPD and the Tucson Fire Department, Kasmar is looking for ways to fill in the funding gaps for what he called an “expensive machine.”
Since cars, technology, weapons, body armor, body-work cameras and more continuously need replacing and upgrading, TPD is actively applying for grants and trying to find ways to ensure the force has the equipment it needs.
Stark warning of funding needs
Early last year, a call came through the 911 system inaccurately saying there was an active shooter and fatalities at Tucson High School, Kasmar said.
Kasmar pulled resources from the police department’s four divisions, with 26 officers, himself included, quickly assembling at the school.
Police soon learned the situation was a swatting incident — a prank call intended to draw a large number of armed police officers to a particular address — and that Tucson was one of six cities targeted in similar incidents that day, Kasmar said.
But he said had it been a real active shooter situation, Tucson officers would not have been properly equipped.
Only six of the officers who responded had rifles, not enough to deploy the department’s tactical response intended to mitigate the loss of life, Kasmar said. He called the rifle-to-officer ratio “unacceptable.”
“We had enough staff to take care of it, but we didn’t have the proper equipment that we should have that day,” he said. “Getting into a gunfight with a handgun versus a rifle, it’s not a fair engagement for that personnel. We really need to think about as a community moving to a proudly funded police department.”
