A high ranking member of the Pima County Sheriff’s Office agreed this month to a 12-month suspension of his state peace officer certification after admitting he was not forthright in a disciplinary action against one of his subordinates.
PCSD Bureau Chief Harold L. “Buddy” Janes signed a consent agreement with the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (AZPOST) board stipulating that his conduct leading to the suspension constituted “malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance in office and is conduct that tends to disrupt, diminish, or otherwise jeopardize public trust in the law enforcement profession.”
Janes, who obtained his peace officer certification in 1999, consented to a bifurcated suspension, with three months served retroactively from July 3, 2021 to Oct. 4, 2021. The remainder runs prospectively from Oct. 24, 2022 to July 24, 2023. The consent agreement was accepted by the AZPOST board last week.
According to public records, Janes was a PCSD captain in 2019 when he twice recommended the suspension of a lieutenant under his command. The written and verbal recommendations were presented to then-Sheriff Mark Napier, and Janes stuck to the recommendation during a conversation with the Pima County Attorney’s Office.
But when the lieutenant appealed the disciplinary action, Janes testified under oath to the Pima County Law Enforcement System Merit Council (LEMSC) that he never agreed with suspending the lieutenant. He only made the recommendations because he felt “ordered” to do so, Janes testified.
The inconsistencies in Janes’ comments to Napier and to LEMSC led to an investigation by the Arizona Department of Public Safety. During an interview with DPS investigators, Janes admitted he had not been candid with the sheriff and had failed to inform his superiors about his opinion.
LEMSC eventually overturned the lieutenant’s suspension, finding Pima County “failed to establish that the discipline imposed was justified.” Both Janes and the lieutenant were later promoted when Sheriff Chris Nanos defeated Napier in 2020.
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