Phoenix police officers are working to clear a stack of 1,600 incident reports that slipped through the cracks after transitioning to a new record-keeping system.
Some of the incidents are considered “critical,” according to an email obtained by ABC15.
Dated December 3, the email was sent to sergeants and lieutenants in the department by Sgt. Toby Dunn.
Dunn’s email states, “Attached is a list of ORIGINAL INCIDENT REPORTS that do not have an offense code. There are approximately 1600 reports with this status. Without an offense code, the report is not routed to an investigative detail."
It’s not clear what kind of incidents were included in the batch of 1600 reports. Sources told ABC15 they worried some might involve crimes that weren’t forwarded to detectives.
But Phoenix Police officials said they don’t believe any violent crimes were missed.
“The affected reports, from our review to this point appear to be non-victim type incidents,” said Phoenix Police spokesperson Sgt. Trent Crump in a written statement. “They are incidents such as found property, impounded vehicles, missing juveniles. Critical job functions; however, not criminal.”
Phoenix Police launched its new record-management system in mid-October after more than a year of delays.
Since, the department has experienced multiple “bumps” and “glitches,” including an outage and delays in getting reports filed on time.
ABC15 also obtained another email a few weeks ago telling some detectives to hold off on submitting cases because of a backlog in processing reports.
ABC15 reached out to the Mayor and City Manager’s Office for comment regarding the 1600 reports.
Through a spokesperson, Assistant City Manager Milton Dahoney said, “We continue to be aware of all aspects of the new RMS. This is a major transformation of new technology and glitches are not outside the scope of what we expected. There have been positive accomplishments as well and we are committed to continuing to aggressively familiarize with the new system to continue moving this technology forward.”
The Mayor’s office has not responded.
Contact ABC15 Investigator Dave Biscobing at dbiscobing@abc15.com
