Too Many Snitches: Phoenix Veterans Affairs Police Calls Telling "Snitching"

DATELINE | WHAT THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IS SAYING: A week after Phoenix VA Police officers trashed the 2024 Cornell Rape Case in front of a female officer, the answer was not repentance ("a change of mind"). It was blame. "Too many snitches." What did anyone expect from a department that let a substantiated racial and sexual harasser be acting chief of police?

"TOO MANY SNITCHES IN THE DEPARTMENT"

The word "Snitch" belongs to the block, the crew, and the bag. It is what a closed circle calls the person who tells. Mafia culture has a version. Street Gang culture has a version. Hood culture has a version. Prison culture has a version. In all of them, the rule is the same.:

What happens inside stays inside. The person who speaks is the problem, not the act.

So Doing What You're Supposed to Do Is Wrong

That word has no business in a federal police department. An officer who reports harassment, a use of force, or a crime is not informing on a crew. He or she is doing what is required as a law enforcement officer and a VA employee. The minute the police department calls that "snitching," it has lost the ethical and moral foundation the badge is supposed to stand on. It has been "COMPROMISED."

THE WEEK AFTER TRASHING AN ACTIVE RAPE LAWSUIT

The exposure of the October 2 hour put the department in the open. On-duty talk about "boners" and "Viagra." The 2024 Cornell Rape Case, called fabricated, a money grab, an orgy. A female officer in the room - who had already engaged in protected activity - against management. Supervisors present. Nobody ordered it to stop. She left the shift sick.

The response from inside, by the account now coming out, was not a correction. It was a headcount:

• On October 6, the line inside the department was: "There's too many snitches in this department."

ONE BAD APPLE, LEFT IN THE BAG - CAUSED THE PD TO "R.O.T."

This is the One-Bad-Apple Effect, except the apple was kept in the bag for three years. A supervisory official was substantiated for sexual harassment and for racial discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A letter of counseling was signed on September 15, 2023, outside the VA discipline matrix in Handbook 5021, by someone who shared longevity with him. Some would say a friend.

He Kept the Chair of Supervision, Authority, and Influence

On September 20, 2023, Associate Director Stacey Scherpf, who had oversight of the police department at the time, signed the memorandum regarding HPP Case No. 6210, confirming that the Law Enforcement Official "engaged in inappropriate sexual in nature conduct."

He kept the badge. He kept a supervisory chair. He was made acting chief of police, more than once.The agency had the paper. It maintained him anyway.

What Followed:

• More than ten (10) "formal" EEO complaints with the Office of Resolution Management (ORM).
• A nonstop flood of Harassment Prevention Program (HPP) complaints.
• Numerous lawsuits, including one that paid a Black officer with taxpayer money (May 15,2024).
• Nonstop internal investigations.

Officers and Supervisors Saw You Won't Get in Trouble If You Behave the Same

The lesson the rest of the department could see did not require a speech. You can be substantiated for Racial harassment and Sexual harassment inside a thirty-day window and stay in charge — but most of all, keep the badge.

TOO COMFORTABLE, YOUR TAXES IN THEIR POCKETS

Look, we get it. People make jokes that do not belong at work. Coworkers laugh at an inappropriate joke. The shift would be a little boring if nobody ever did. Locker-room talk is not the charge. There is still a limit.

A Reasonable Person Would Have Read the Room

Every little thing said is not a serious complaint. Office talk is office talk. A joke that stays a joke is not a case.

This department is not a blank room. It already carries a substantiated hostile work environment on race, a Title VII racial-discrimination finding, and sexual harassment, all tied to management, all tied to "one official" who ran the department and was appointed Acting Chief of Police by the VA. The culture has to be read against that file.

So the question is not whether police officers get to talk. It is whether inappropriate jokes are the standard, or professionalism is.

Nothing Effective Happened to Him

Comfort is what you get when the person who would have run the department faced nothing effective, and everyone else watched. Influence left on a compromised official. A good-old-boy arrangement where adverse action is something that happens to the person who tells, not the person who did it.

That is how a room gets comfortable enough to judge a Rape case in the news before sunrise, and comfortable enough, a week later, to complain about the number of snitches.

CALL IT SNITCHING, THEN WONDER WHY NOBODY TALKS

Run the mindset forward. A veteran gets hurt. A use of force is questionable. An officer sees wrongdoing and knows the word waiting for him is "snitch."

Snitches Get Stitches, Federal Edition

"Snitches get stitches" is the street version of the same rule. Inside a police department, the stitches are: Disciplinary paperwork. Credentials pulled. Arrest authority suspended. Lost backup. An accusation built to get you terminated and destroy a law enforcement career. Officers start doing the math on whether the person next to them will have their back, or will remember who spoke

A department that calls reporting snitching cannot be trusted with the moment that actually requires it.

It's no wonder federal law enforcement officials at the Phoenix VA stopped going to their supervisors, investigators, command staff, and the offices with authority — and resorted to anonymity to report issues. They get labeled a "snitch."

FINAL WORD

Phoenix VA Police got too comfortable. Operations influenced by an official the agency had already substantiated for misconduct of a "sexual nature" and a Title VII violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for racial discrimination.

The Will Teasle Rule: "You bring me a problem, you become the problem. Remember, this town has two shifts. The one that happened, and the one that goes in the log. A good officer hears it, laughs, and goes back to the car — a bad one writes it down."

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Concerned Citizens AZ Investigative Team — By their rule, a "good officer" hears a rape case called an orgy, laughs, and goes back to the car. A "bad officer" writes it down, and they call that officer a "SNITCH."

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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.