The State of Arizona is deploying School Resource Officers (SROs) into additional schools through 2026. The firm Off Duty Management will be facilitating the deployment of armed, uniformed police officers into multiple schools across six counties as part of Superintendent Tom Horne’s agreement with the company.
According to a press release from the Arizona Department of Education, Horne announced the state’s partnership with Off Duty Management last October to facilitate the deployment of armed, trained and uniformed officers despite the shortage of police officers in many Arizona communities.
Off Duty Management is a firm founded by former law enforcement officers with a particular market in supporting law enforcement operations. It employs current officers during their off-duty time through it’s proprietary OfficerTRAK® software and mobile app enabling the officers to schedule opportunities to work as SROs at various participating schools.
Horne told reporters, “The safety of school campuses is a priority for my administration. If some armed maniac should try to invade a school, the most effective response is to have well-trained armed law enforcement officers to protect everyone on campus. Our partnership with Off Duty Management is a vital part of ensuring safety. It is proving to be a successful, effective public-private partnership and the first of its kind in the nation.”
Arizona Department of Education’s Director of School Safety Mike Kurtenbach explained, “This agreement with Off Duty Management is a complement to the School Resource Officer program and illustrates how police officers who work as school safety officers also are trusted role models for students, which brings a sense of safety to the school campus.”
He added, “With this innovation, an officer can be provided to a school even if the community where that school is located has a shortage of its own officers. Cross-jurisdictional sharing of resources makes perfect sense to use this strategy to protect children and others in schools.”
He observed that the arrangement places over 700 officers, trained and eligible under the law, to serve at the disposal of Arizona schools. Sixty districts or charters in Maricopa County and dozens more across five other counties are participating.
Speaking with AZ family, Horne said, “We didn’t say no to anybody because my nightmare is that some maniac would go into a school and kill 20 kids.” He noted that the actions of two SROs were critical to halting the rampage of a 14-year-old who attacked and killed two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia. Horne told reporters the tragedy could have been much worse. “It saved a lot of lives,” he said.
In a post to X following the school shooting, Horne wrote, “My heart goes out to the people of Georgia today. And to those who continue to resist School Resource Officers in Arizona, please watch the news. These tragedies are recurrent nightmares demanding we prioritize safety in our schools.”
My heart goes out to the people of Georgia today. And to those who continue to resist School Resource Officers in Arizona, please watch the news. These tragedies are recurrent nightmares demanding we prioritize safety in our schools.
He explained that at present, “There are 228 SSOs that are full-time, then we have what are called school safety officers that are part-time,” and cited the expansion will vastly increase that number. He told the outlet that all schools requesting an SRO should get one.
On Wednesday evening, a crowd of over 2,000 people, both at Generation Church in Mesa and in overflow seating gathered by Turning Point USA, greeted Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance for a rally and vote chasing event. During the event, Vance and TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk took to the stage and made a brutal case against a Kamala Harris presidency.
In their conversation before taking questions from the audience, Vance and Kirk discussed the plagues of fentanyl and child sex trafficking and the toll they are taking on not only Arizona, but on the nation as a whole. Vance was highly critical of Harris’ border policy and attempts to co-opt the visual of the border wall constructed under President Donald Trump’s administration for her campaign ads. They addressed inflation robbing Arizonans and Americans alike of wealth, and in particular stealing from Phoenix the coveted title of ‘most affordable city.’
First and foremost however, Vance criticized Harris as “terrified of the media because she’s terrified of the American people because she knows that if she speaks off the cuff, she’s going to let them know just how completely radical she is.” He stressed, “She is exactly what she said she was. She’s exactly what she has governed as, and the reason why she only talks to the American people with a teleprompter sitting in between them is because she knows the American people can smell a fraud, and she is a fraud. And we have to remind people of it.”
Kirk and Vance brought the combined interests of Harris and Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz to the forefront as well, recalling Harris’ donation to a bail fund for those Summer 2020 rioters who burned Minneapolis.
Vance observed, “It’s almost hard to believe Charlie, but I looked this up. It actually is true. Remember when there were rioters in the summer of 2020 that burned down the City of Minneapolis and a bunch of other cities on top of it. Now they didn’t catch a whole lot of them, but they did catch some of those rioters, and guess who was at the front of the line trying to bail them out of prison. Kamala Harris, who now says that she supports police officers. We can never let her forget it. She was bailing out the people who were attacking police officers and burning down a great American city. That is the record of Kamala Harris, and let’s have a President like Donald J. Trump who actually supports our police officers to keep us safe. It’s very simple stuff.”
Perhaps most critically though, Vance skewered Harris for the obvious discrepancy of effectively running away from her own three years as a leading figure in the self-styled Biden-Harris administration. When reminded by Kirk of the disconnect, he answered:
“Charlie, it, it takes a special level of shamelessness. Maybe I’ve only been in politics for two years, so I just haven’t reached that level, but to look at the American people, even though she’s reading off a teleprompter and to say, on day one, we’re going to make groceries and housing more affordable on day one. Kamala Harris says this, ‘We’re going to tackle the American southern border.’ Kamala, day one was 3 and a half years ago! What the hell have you been doing the whole time?”
Vance recovered from the momentary slip of profanity in the Church setting, mentioning that the pastors on hand were “going to have to forgive me because I do sometimes talk like my Mamaw, and she was a woman of a very serious Christian faith, but she did love the f-word every now and then.”
Pressing into the issue of fentanyl, Vance discussed his mother’s struggle with addiction and remarked that when she nearly died from an overdose during his childhood, surely, fentanyl would have killed her. He also addressed the child sex trafficking crisis noting, “This is what our government leaders have done. 320,000 kids, and we know, by the way, a lot of those kids have lost their lives.”
He continued, “A lot of those kids are being sex trafficked by some of the most evil people in the world. This is the wages of Kamala Harris’s disastrous border policy, and it’s happening every day in this country.
We have to remember that they told us that Kamala Harris was the compassionate person when it came to the border. Remember when they said Donald Trump is the person who wanted to separate families? Now the way that you keep families together is to send a message that if you want to come through to this country, you’ve got to come through the proper channels. When you empower these cartels, when you tell everybody that they can come across illegally, that’s what causes family separation on an industrial scale. Never let them tell you that Kamala Harris’s border policies are compassionate. There are 320,000 voices of children crying out telling us, Kamala Harris is not compassionate. She is a disaster, and we cannot promote her to the Oval Office.”
Congressmen Eli Crane (R-AZ) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) have issued a letter directed to the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan. The letter called upon them both to answer for the prioritization of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training over other considerations by the Coast Guard. The Congressmen are demanding the two address the impact of this prioritized training on the operational readiness of the Guard.
As noted in a press release from Rep. Crane, “USCG has reported that it is about 4,800 members short and has missed its recruiting targets for the past four fiscal years, leading to the decommissioning and shorter lifecycle of USCG ships and increased burden on USCG members.”
The Arizona Congressman further observed, “At the same time, the USCG is carrying out indoctrination training, including Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) inclusivity training, which service members believe to be extraneous to mission-critical tasks.”
In April, the U.S. Naval Institute wrote that the Coast Guard, being 2,500 personnel under recruiting goals, has launched a “comprehensive talent realignment initiative that sought to address personnel shortages,” citing a top personnel officer.
In November 2023, Fagan was forced to acknowledge the then-shortfall of 3,500 recruits as it sidelined 10 Coast Guard Cutters and 29 stations according to Forbes.
The outlet reported, “Three east-coast based Reliance-class cutters, the USCGC Confidence (WMEC-619), the USCGC Dauntless(WMEC-624) and the USCGC Dependable (WMEC-626), will each enter layup in mid 2024, becoming little more than in-reserve ‘parts-barns’ for active, in-service cutters. Add in the March retirement of the Decisive (ex-WMEC-629) with the long-planned retirement of the USCGC Steadfast (WMEC-623) later this year, and the loss of Coast Guard cutter capability becomes quite significant.”
In a post to X, Gaetz explained, “The U.S. Coast Guard is prioritizing indoctrination training over addressing its staffing shortages and military readiness. Today, I sent a letter with @RepEliCrane to DHS @SecMayorkas and USCG Commandant Linda Fagan to demand answers on why the USCG is focusing on training for Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity inclusivity instead of improving manning issues, meeting recruiting goals, and recommissioning ships.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is prioritizing indoctrination training over addressing its staffing shortages and military readiness.
In the text of the letter, Crane and Gaetz tell Mayorkas and Fagan, “We have heard from service members concerned with trainings and events they believe to be extraneous to mission- critical tasks, specifically Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) inclusivity training programs, including the attached examples of official USCG announcements encouraging service member participation in Transgender Shipmates Inclusion Training.”
Among the Congressmen’s inquiries, they are demanding the Coast Guard and DHS answer: “How much of the USCG’s budget has been spent on developing and carrying out SOGI inclusivity trainings and events within the last three fiscal years?” They are also demanding a citation of the statutory authority which DHS and the USCG are using to justify said training and whether these trainings are taking place during work hours or after duty hours. Finally, they ask, “Do USCG personnel who attend SOGI inclusivity training events receive promotion points or recognition?”
The two conclude definitively, “We ask you to end SOGI inclusivity training programs within the USCG and focus on mission-critical operations.”
Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier suggests low recruitment numbers are a result of "young people not knowing about the Coast Guard."
Eli Crane asks if the real reason is because of “wokeness and drag shows on base." pic.twitter.com/ujd7CuvUFT
As noted by Citizen Free Press, Crane has been questioning the effectiveness of Coast Guard recruiting since at least November 2023 when he challenged Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier that the real cause of the decline could be “wokeness and drag shows on base.”
On Tuesday, a judge considered the ongoing matter of Prop 140 in April Smith v. Fontes. The case involves a challenge of the validity of Arizona’s ranked choice voting initiative signatures.
At the end of the hearing, the number of challenged signatures was whittled down from over 40,000 to approximately 38,100 to be reviewed by a special master appointed by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge FrankMoskowitz.
Court observers are questioning if the outcome of the case has already been determined in Moskowitz’s mind.
It was evident that there was confusion between the judge and counsels for the plaintiffs, the Make Elections Fair Arizona PAC, and the Arizona Secretary of State on how to determine whether signatures already eliminated by County authorities or the Secretary of State would be present in either the full number of signatures or in “extrapolations.” The extrapolations are created by multiplying a 5% sample by 20 under existing statute to create a “validity rate” that can be applied to the sum total of signatures.
The hearing seemed expressly focused on how much of the evidence of duplicate signatures the court should exclude from consideration, rather than as the Supreme Court directed in Mussi v. Fontes, to “determine whether the exhibits prove any duplicate signatures by clear and convincing evidence.”
Judge Moskowitz appeared more concerned with determining how many exhibits do not prove duplicate signatures, saying, “They’re done. It’s over. It doesn’t matter if the remaining 31,000 or whatever it is are in fact duplicates and maybe double counted, maybe not give ’em credit and say they weren’t double counted. If you can get 4,800 that were double counted, it’s over,” describing what he expects to see in a brief from Make Elections Fair PAC.
Attorney Daniel Arellano, representing Plaintiffs April Smith, Nira Lee, and Joshua Davidian pushed back against this notion saying, “First of all, I just to be clear, I mean these all sound like categorical arguments to me, which I think are precisely what the Supreme Court said not to do. I’ve not seen briefing of this issue. There’s a preview of it. (…) I’ve not actually seen any legal argument on this, but as I listened to this argument here today, judge, I think, again, I forget if it’s Leah v. Hobbs or Leah v. Reagan, but one of the two definitely says that we get to invalidate signatures for reasons other than, in addition to, and outside of the 5% sample. And so if the premise of the committee’s argument is that it is, we have to go with what the county hasn’t validated because that is already multiplied times 20, and we can’t invalidate anything in addition to or separate from that. That is I think a proposition that the Supreme Court has squarely rejected.”
He added, “I think the point is I don’t think we can use this as an avenue to foreclose line by line review of the 38,000 signatures.”
But Judge Moskowitz was quick to retort: “No, I understand that. But even if I said yes, clear and convincing all 38,000, it says proceed accordingly. And my proceed accordingly is my next step is going to be how do I know of whatever number is of duplicates hasn’t been already invalidated. How do I know this signature hasn’t already been invalidated? And I think that would be in the proceed accordingly part of the Supreme Court’s order.”
However, the order from Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer made the court’s priority clear, “The trial court must continue with determining whether the initiative is supported by a sufficient number of qualified signatures. This determination should be made as expeditiously as possible to provide the parties and the public certainty.”
In a thread posted to X, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC) paraphrased a comment from the organization’s President Scot Mussi, “This isn’t a debate about dubious matches or concerns of same family members with the same name being confused as a duplicate. All the duplicates submitted to be removed were exact name and address matches that aligned with what was on the voter file. Under state law, you are only allowed to sign a petition once, so they should have been removed. Instead, thousands of people were allowed to sign the initiative petition sheets multiple times, and those signatures were counted.”
This isn’t a debate about dubious matches or concerns of same family members with the same name being confused as a duplicate. All the duplicates submitted to be removed were exact name and address matches that aligned with what was on the voter file.
In a press release the organization cited from the evidence presented that:
When the Prop 140 Committee submitted their signatures to the Secretary of State, around 250 people had signed five or more times.
One individual had signed 15 times.
All those signatures were included in the final tabulation by the Arizona Secretary of State.
In a status update hearing held late on Wednesday, it was determined that Retired Arizona Superior Court Judge Christopher Skelly will lead the signature verification effort as court-appointed Special Master. During the meeting, Judge Moskowitz again referred to a possible stopping point for the signature review, asking Arellano, “Not to be looking at this for one side or the other, but there is a number of 4,800. And the only reason I say that number is because it’s the lowest number we’re talking about. But if that 4,800 number of duplicates is reached um… Does he stop if he knocks out whatever that number is 4,800 of duplicates? So you don’t get to your 33,000 something, something number Mr. Arellano? Does he just stop?”
Arellano, representing the plaintiffs, responded that the Special Master should be checking in with attorneys from both sides “periodically,” however, he added, “We’ve not set that up as any particular kind of benchmark. Nor do I know that we’d be comfortable doing so, since it sort of sets that up as like a goal of sorts.”
The signature checking effort is expected to run through September 16th with a hearing to discuss legal briefs from both sides on Friday.
Multiple sources have confirmed that two professors at Arizona State University, Dr. Angela Lober and Jenny Irish, spent an hour discussing with students “dismantling capitalism and electing a female president to restore reproductive rights.” They also asserted that, as Lober claimed, “the United States hates women and everything the female body does.”
The program in question: “Jenny Irish’s HATCH: A Speculative Future for Reproductive Rights,” was offered by the university through ASU Events on the website. The event was described as a workshop where, “Professor Irish will give a reading from Hatch, after which she’ll be joined in conversation by Dr. Angela Lober, Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Academy of Lactation Programs at the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation. Come ready with your own questions and comments about the future of reproductive health in the face of climate change, misinformation, and other problems facing our present and our future.”
Hatch is a collection of prose poems from English Professor Jenny Irish. ASU described Hatch as, “This apocalyptic vision engages with the most pressing concerns of this contemporary sociopolitical moment: reproductive rights, climate crises, and mass extinction; gender and racial bias in healthcare and technology; disinformation, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience; and the possibilities and dangers of artificial intelligence.”
The event, co-hosted by the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, took a decidedly apocalyptic turn according to College Fix, with Irish warning of a dystopian future for the United States complete with “cannibalism,” and “forced breeding camps.”
“So much of our reality points toward those futures,” she told attendees. Lober added, “The balance between hope and despair is an everyday experience for me.” She explained, “A couple years ago I never thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned. How could we possibly do that?”
Irish also made an ardent defense of transgenderism and claimed an “all-out assault on the trans community and people’s ability to self-identify,” exists in the U.S. She added, “It is disgusting, immoral, and wrong.” Per the Arizona Sun Times, the professors took about 15 questions via Zoom and when asked about the well-published decline in global birth rates, Lober said it doesn’t “bother” her, claiming “we are overpopulated.”
Coordinator of the ASU event, Karina Fitzgerald, told College Fix, the goal of the event was to “encourage students that are following creative pursuits or other types of worldbuilding to simply explore other elements that they haven’t thought of before in their writing, or other ways to challenge themselves in creative processes.” She described the “element of worldbuilding” for creating “fictional stories” as “a good exercise for students to get in the practice of.”
However, ASU Professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology Dr. Owen Anderson offered a different perspective in a comment to AZ Free News. He starkly criticized his colleagues’ openly political statements that move beyond the “fictional stories.”
Dr. Anderson wrote, “ASU professors are not to use university resources to tell students how to vote in an election. Not only that, professors are to be examples of clear thinking. Instead, these professors are using cheap scare tactics and logical fallacies to try and influence students. It is a misuse of their position and creates an unfair power dynamic for students. When will ASU hold such professors accountable?”
The Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, Dr. Jonathan Turley, while noting the professors “have every right to espouse these views and it is good for students to have a wide variety of viewpoints on campus,” took note of the “hyperbolic rhetoric,” renewing his objection that conservative, moderate, and libertarian faculty have been purged from academia.
Specifically, Turley pointed to the staunchly one-sided, anti-capitalist nature of the event’s rhetoric writing, “The ASU event captures a rising call for dismantling an economic system that helped drive industrial innovation and massive wealth creation. It has also left great wealth disparities. We have sought to address poverty with social programs that offer greater opportunity for those who have not been able to escape cycles of poverty. We have much work to be done. However, the anti-capitalist movement often offers few specifics on the alternatives, as at the ASU event.”
He concluded, “This is a debate that should be welcomed but not in this type of one-sided, jingoistic presentation. Imagine how much more substantive this panel would have been with an alternative viewpoint. Let’s have a discussion on the merits of capitalism and the record of alternative systems. That would offer educational and not merely emotive benefits to our academic community.”
