Phoenix VA Police Kept a Substantiated Harasser in Command — Then Let Him Investigate Complaints

DATELINE | WHAT PVAHCS EMPLOYEES SHOULD KNOW: Phoenix Veterans Affairs Police officers have used the official channels — Harassment Prevention Program (HPP), the department, and the VA's Law Enforcement Oversight and Criminal Investigations Division (LEO-CID) — some complaints begin anonymously and are later sent to LEO-CID. The investigation can still land back with local management, even while the department keeps a substantiated racial and sexual harasser in command level supervision of the department.

• That compromises the process and the whole department. 

YOU REPORT IT. THEY PUT THE HARASSERS — OR THEIR CIRCLE — IN CHARGE OF THE INVESTIGATION.

You Use The Official Channel

You report a supervisor for harassment. It may be sexual harassment — a recurring problem inside Phoenix VA Police culture. It may be racial harassment. It may be disability harassment. Or it may be conduct that violates VA Directive and Handbook 5979, which can fall short of a Title VII violation and still breach the agency’s own rules on professionalism, workplace conduct, and harassment.

Officers have tried the official routes. They have gone to HPP. They have gone through the department. They have gone to Office of Resolution Management (ORM). Under the current structure, LEO-CID has oversight over VA Police misconduct. The complaint gets logged. A record is created.

Then The Same Problem Walks Into The Interview

Then the process comes back around — and a person previously investigated, someone with pending EEO complaints, someone close enough to the problem, or someone you previously reported and had substantiated allegations against, is sitting in the interview room or looking at you on a Microsoft Teams video meeting as the administrator, the interviewer, or the fact-finder.

That is not a hypothetical. That is the structural problem.

THE OLD WAY WAS INFORMAL. THE NEW PROCESS CAN STILL BE CONTROLLED.

Complaints Used To Disappear

For years, Phoenix VA Police complaints were handled the old way. Before officers began using HPP, ORM, or the formal EEO process, supervisors often preferred to “work it out.”

Employees who raised concerns were allegedly mocked, dismissed, told to deal with it themselves, or met with some version of: “What do you want me to do about it?” Complaints were called “BS,” minimized, or ignored. Many incidents never became a file.

That history matters. A department that once treated harassment as an inconvenience does not suddenly become a credible investigator of itself just because the paperwork now has a case number.

Reporting Increased. Protection Did Not.

Over roughly the last four years, more officers have started using the proper channels. That is progress. The problem is what happens next. Employees who report often describe what they believe is retaliation — reassignment, isolation, scrutiny, career damage — delivered in ways sophisticated enough that a clean causal line is hard to prove.

Protected activity is supposed to be protected. A process that leaves the employee guessing whether the next adverse action is coincidence or payback is not a process that inspires confidence.

THE CORE CONFLICT: FORMERLY ACCUSED OFFICIALS AND THEIR CIRCLE GET TO RUN THE INVESTIGATION

Officials With Substantiated Findings Still Get To Investigate

Officers who have reported harassment found themselves being questioned by officials who themselves carry substantiated harassment findings, including Title VII substantiations. Those same officials — people already tied to substantiated racial harassment, sexual harassment, or both — have then been permitted by HPP and LEO-CID to conduct fact-finding investigations.

That is not a gray area. That is the agency handing investigative authority to individuals whose own records already include completed findings of harassment.

The Same Supervisor Comes Back Years Later

There is a more specific pattern as well. Individuals who previously had substantiated sexual-harassment findings made against them by a particular supervisor later found that same supervisor assigned to question them as a witness in misconduct and other sexual harassment related complaints — this time involving other supervisors they had worked with for years. In one incident this year, an officer was questioned by a supervisor they reported sexual harassment against years prior — WHICH WAS SUBSTANTIATED —  and was placed back under the investigative control of the same official, this time as a witness. That is what the current process has allowed when complaints are sent back into the local structure.

HPP and LEO-CID Refer The Complaint Back To The Same Shop

Even when the complaint is filed with HPP and LEO-CID, both entities may refer the matter back to the local organization for fact-finding. LEO-CID has national oversight for "VA Police Misconduct," but the fact-finding can still remain with local management. That referral is the hinge. It takes programs and offices designed to address workplace harassment and police misconduct and hands the interviews back to the same workplace accused of producing the problem — and, in some cases, back to people already named in substantiated findings, or to people close enough to them to raise an obvious conflict.

Professional Standards Is Not Automatic Independence

LEO-CID’s "Professional Standards" process — the internal-affairs side — does not automatically solve the problem. If a Professional Standards or administrative investigation is still assigned to local supervisors, coworkers, or officials already tied to substantiated racial or sexual harassment findings, it is the same loop with a different label. Oversight that returns the inquiry to a compromised shop is not independent oversight.

The Record Already Exists. The Same People Still Investigate.

Phoenix VA Police already has substantiated findings involving racial harassment and sexual harassment, plus a record of Title VII liability and sustained HPP findings. The department has also kept a racial and sexual harasser in command-level supervision. Asking officers to trust that same organization — and, at times, the same implicated officials or their circle — to investigate new allegations is asking them to ignore the record. It compromises the whole department.

THIS IS NOT ONLY A PHOENIX VA POLICE PROBLEM

Washington Policy Makes The Loop Possible

If VA policy from Washington, D.C., permits HPP and LEO-CID  to leave  fact-finding with the same local management structure — a department that maintains a supervisor with substantiated racial discrimination and sexual harassment in charge of a police force — then the conflict is baked into the system. Officers are left with a simple question:

• Who are they supposed to turn to?

A Case Number Is Not Independence

HPP & LEO-CID deserve credit for one real improvement. A complainant can now receive a report number and documentation that a complaint was actually made. That is better than the old model and compromised culture of the department, where an employee reports an incident to a supervisor and the allegation vanished. However, if the complainant later requests the investigation through FOIA - it is redacted to the highest degree.

Documentation is not independence. A case number without a clean investigator is a receipt for a process that can still be captured by the same people who created the problem.

WHEN WILL THE AGENCY REQUIRE TRULY INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS?

When will HPP and LEO-CID stop leaving fact-finding investigations to the same local department — including supervisors who are available, convenient, connected, or already tied to substantiated findings?

If these offices exist to prevent workplace harassment and to run a credible police service by determining misconduct, they should not allow local management to investigate itself while a substantiated racial and sexual harasser remains in command level supervision.

THE INSTITUTIONAL TEST

The reporting  system is not measured by how many report numbers it issues. It is measured by whether officers can report without walking back into the same power structure that produced the complaint.

Phoenix VA Police already carries substantiated findings. Phoenix VA Executive Leadership already signed off on HPP memoranda regarding a Supervisory Police Officer that engaged in "Simulated Masturbation" and then kept that official in a position of influence. LEO-CID has oversight of misconduct. None of that changes the basic defect: if the fact-finder is a formerly accused official, someone close to the accused, or an official already tied to a substantiated finding, the process is not independent. The department is compromised.

Officers are not asking for a friendlier slogan. They are asking for an investigator who does not work for, report to, sit beside, socialize with, or already carry a substantiated record connected to the problem.

• When is the agency going to require it?

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Concerned Citizens AZ Investigative Team – When HPP and LEO-CID Send the Complaint Back to the Same "Compromised" Department, We Put the Loop on Record.

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READER NOTICE

Concerned Citizens Media encourages readers to independently verify the information contained in this publication, including through public records, official sources, or AI-assisted research tools. For additional information or clarification, readers are encouraged to contact appropriate Department of Veterans Affairs officials or their local VA facility directly.

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DISCLAIMER

Any attempt to retaliate against current or former VA employees, officers, contractors, or witnesses for engaging in protected whistleblower or EEO activity related to the matters discussed herein may constitute a violation of federal law, including 5 U.S.C. § 2302(b)(8)–(9), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and applicable VA anti‑retaliation policies. Documentation, reporting, or public discussion of substantiated misconduct, harassment, discrimination, or policy violations is protected activity.