Written by: Brian Pryor
The Town of Marana terminated Officer Calvin Ingram on September 22nd 2009 for misusing a department vehicle and misusing a police computer by running record searches 86 times for non police related business.
KGUN9 requested the internal affairs records and the audit, here's what we found.
Investigators in a memorandum to Ingram on September 16th 2009 notified him of the instances that led to his dismissal.
*On June 26th 2009, while under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ingram in a marked patrol vehicle drove at high speed with lights and siren activated to attend a briefing at the Ina Rd substation.
*On June 30th 2009, a male citizen called in a complaint concerning Ingram performing a police records search on his name at the request of the complainants fiancee.
Internal affairs investigators performed an audit of Ingram's police records queries from October 1st 2008 to August 12th 2009, in the audit they discovered 86 queries which were not for a criminal justice purpose. In the queries they also located searches for 2 current Marana Police Officers and 1 former Marana Police Department employee.
The memo continues outlining the reasons for termination and pointing out that reasons are also violations of Arizona Law and classified as Class 6 felony's. It closes with a pre-action meeting to be scheduled on September 21st 2009 at 1p.m. to discuss the items with the Chief of Police.
Ingram on Monday September 21st 2009 sent an e-mail to the Chief of Police as follows
"Chief Tometich, Sir, I do not believe I committed any offense that warrants termination, Sir, all due respect if I am terminated from Marana Police Department I will appeal such action. Thank you sir for your time.."
The Chief, Terry Tometich notified Ingram that he was terminated from the department effective September 22nd 2009.
KGUN9 also received transcripts of two telephone conversations between investigators and civilians concerning Ingram.
The first transcript is between Sergeant Derfus and an un-named male civilian. The civilian is engaged to his girlfriend who says she knows officers in the Marana Police Department including Carl Ingram.
The male mentions that his girlfriend and Ingram met each other in a shell parking lot near Cortaro and Interstate 10 after Ingram performed a traffic stop on her. His girlfriend told the male that she and Ingram "Made out" while Ingram was on-duty working. After the time in the parking lot the girlfriend and Ingram proceeded to Ingram's residence where she had sex with him.
The transcript continues with the male explaining how his girlfriend asked Ingram to perform a police records search on him, during the search Ingram provided the girlfriend with telephone numbers that the male had been assigned in the past.
The transcript closes with the Sgt. and the male discussing procedures for how he will be notified of the outcome.
The second transcript begins on On August 26th 2009 with a conversation between Sgt. Derfus and the girlfriend.
In the conversation the girlfriend admits to investigators that Ingram performed a records search at her request, primarily to determine if her fiancee was violent or not. She added Ingram provided past telephone numbers to her and the information ultimately broke her and her boyfriend (the original complainant) up.
The investigator then talks with the woman and explains that the romantic conduct on duty is inappropriate, he prefaces the explanation with "Calvin's been through this before, you know, and Calvin knows, and we know.".
The woman then says that she plans to report the original complainant for the same inappropriate records searching that Ingram has done, from the context one concludes the complainant is also in law enforcement at a different agency.
KGUN9s record request ends with a final memorandum dated September 15th 2009 from Chief Tometich to Bill Derfus.
The memo recaps the reasons for terminating Ingram , and mentions the case was forwarded to the State Attorney General's Office.
Michael Jette with the AG's office was assigned the case and it was determined to charge Officer Carl Ingram with 7 counts of Computer Tampering, and to withhold 79 counts of computer tampering for possibly prosecution in the future.
