“The A-Team” may have stopped running on network television in 1986, but the Tempe Police Department’s “A-Team” is in full swing.
Since August, Tempe Police’s second neighborhood-oriented crime-fighting squad, formally labeled the ACTION (Attacking Crime Trends In Our Neighborhoods) Team, has been tackling crimes like vehicle thefts, robberies and precious-metal thefts.
“What we look for often are the trends or emerging trends within our neighborhoods,” Tempe Police spokeswoman Molly Enright said of the teams. “They can range from everything from burglary trends to neighborhood street robbery trends.”
The new ACTION Team operates out of the Tempe Police South Substation on South Hardy Drive, and becomes the south Tempe equivalent of the original Tempe ACTION Team, formed in 2001.
“We’ve doubled our capabilities with our quick response teams,” Enright said. “They’re mobile, and they’re highly trained.”
Tempe Police Cmdr. Mark Perkovich, who oversees operations in the south side of Tempe, supervises the new ACTION Team.
Perkovich said the primary focus of the team members “isn’t like a typical patrol officer,” and in the wake of robberies occurring near the ASU campus, ACTION Team members are patrolling in unmarked vehicles around the University.
The team was formed in mid-August, a month that saw the most reported crimes so far of 2010 with 842, according to police department statistics. The 68 reported auto thefts, 562 larceny thefts and 135 burglaries were the most in each category since 2009, according to police statistics.
Enright said much of the team’s focus goes toward repeat criminals who are “victimizing our neighborhoods.”
“If we have an area that’s been of concern in a neighborhood, they can focus their planning efforts,” Enright said. “If we get a call for service and there’s an indication that it’s related to other crimes that have occurred, they can respond very quickly to crimes in progress, and can do the follow-up.”
Tempe Police Cmdr. Dave Humble, who oversees northern Tempe Police coverage and the original ACTION Team, said with the advent of the second squad, there is now street-level coverage by the squads seven days a week.
“It gives us a lot more flexibility to focus on problems in our neighborhoods,” he said. “We already had the perfect model, and we just wanted to re-create it.”
Humble said the primary challenge the department was facing with only one ACTION Team was that officers from investigations and administrative units would have to be used on the three days per week that ACTION Team members weren’t on the job.
“We might be attacking a crime trend, and we might have to pull resources from other departments to attack that while they’re off,” he said.
Now, with ACTION Team members on the streets every day, Humble said it allows them to tackle crime head-on.
“Instead of these reports being taken by a patrol officer, or assigned to a detective with 30 other cases, they can go out there and investigate it,” he said. “It allows us to continue to catch these bad guys within a day or two, instead of maybe having to wait weeks or months down the road until we catch someone.”
Both teams were recently in action when a series of three robberies took place, beginning on the night of Sept. 28, Humble said.
After two on-the-street robberies and a convenience store robbery within 16 hours, both ACTION Teams, along with patrol officers, a K-9 unit and investigators tracked down and arrested four suspects, with varying levels of involvement in the crimes, Humble said.
Humble said the ACTION Team had been in the area after the first robbery, and was still in the area after the third.
The team filled the area and located one of the suspects at a nearby apartment complex, he said.
Humble said the arrest of the first suspect led to a near-immediate arrest of the other three suspects.
Scott Holbrook, 19, was facing three counts of armed robbery and one count of attempted robbery; Brian Lessing, 18, was facing one count of second-degree armed robbery and possession of stolen property; Nathaniel Huffman, 26, was facing one count of second-degree armed robbery and false reporting to law enforcement; Michael Bailey, 22, was facing one count of second-degree armed robbery, Tempe Police Sgt. Steve Carbajal said.
“If we hadn’t caught those guys, that would have been three unsolved robberies,” he said. “This one suspect (Holbrook), if he was tied to all three, this is a bad guy.”
The ACTION Team also recently dealt with a rising number of crimes taking place at Tempe Marketplace, but after the squad’s intervention at the location, Humble said “their numbers have gone way down.”
Perkovich said team members have also been battling copper theft, and the more proactive nature of the ACTION Team, in addition to networking with Phoenix Police and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, has helped make a conscious effort to curb the theft of the precious metal.
For now, Humble said community-related issues and neighborhood parks are on the hot list for ACTION Team patrol.
Alcohol and curfew violations have been on the rise in Tempe parks, he said, as well as neighborhood fights and bike thefts on ASU’s Tempe campus.
“If we can throw a whole squad to find [suspects] in one night, our hope is we’ll prevent more crime in the future,” Humble said.
Reach the reporter at mhendley@asu.edu
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