Mountain Pointe tops police calls for Ahwatukee schools - Arizona Republic

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Since 2009, Mountain Pointe High School has had the most police calls for service of Ahwatukee's five public high schools and middle schools.

Data provided by the Phoenix Police Department show that from Jan. 1, 2009 to Aug. 14, 2011:

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 Of 230 total calls to Mountain Pointe, 41 were for theft and 31 were for marijuana or other drug-related incidents.

Of 154 total calls to Desert Vista, 20 were for theft and 22 calls were for marijuana or other drug-related incidents.

Police were called to Centennial 126 times, Akimel A-al 98 times and Altadena 54 times. Of the total calls from these schools, 24 were drug-related.

See police calls chart at end of story

In 2009, Mountain Pointe and Desert Vista had roughly the same number of calls for service, 79 and 74, but in 2010 and 2011, Mountain Pointe has generated a total of 71 more calls than Desert Vista for the two-year period.

That could be because Desert Vista had a police officer on site when Mountain Pointe did not, officials said.

Phoenix police Sgt. Scott McCauley said Desert Vista hired a reserve office for the last 18 months, which could account for the discrepancy.

The officer worked there five hours a day.

"He took all of the calls out there at DV, so there wouldn't have necessarily been a call for service," McCauley said.

Phoenix police have been called to Desert Vista 31 times this year, up to Aug. 14. Of those, seven were marijuana-related, four for fights and four for 911 hang-ups.

Desert Vista Principal Anna Battle did not return calls seeking comment.

Police have been called to Mountain Pointe 68 times since Jan. 1. Of those, 13 were for drug-related incidents, including nine reports of marijuana, and 10 were for 911 hang-up calls. An additional 11 were for theft.

Mountain Pointe Principal Bruce Kipper said the decision whether to call the police about a theft is usually up to the student victim and his parents.

"We do the best we can, but we're not a police agency," he said. "We don't stop school to investigate thefts."

Those calls are made for a variety of thefts - including valuables such as shoes, bikes, iPods and cellphones - and often come when someone forgets to close or secure a locker, Kipper said.

"Just like in the community, there's people that try to take advantage of other people," he said.

Kipper said he believes there is a correlation between the state of the economy and thefts at school.

"The worse the economy gets, the more those types of crimes go up," he said. "I don't know whether it's just kids not having as much money as they used to have because their parents are having a harder time, but I do think it has something to do with the economy."

Since 2009, Mountain Pointe had logged a total of 31 calls for marijuana or other drugs on campus, including 13 this year. "Any time we catch a kid, we're required by law to report it to the police," Kipper said.

On May 4, there were two calls to police for counterfeit currency. Kipper said two students were caught by cafeteria workers with fake $20 bills.

"The kids ended up claiming that they sold some stereo equipment to some guy they met on Craigslist and he paid him with counterfeit money," he said.

In the past two years, the school has had 18 hang-up calls to 911. Kipper said that's a mystery yet to be solved.

"They happen more often then you would think," he said, though Mountain Pointe administrators don't know where the calls are coming from.

There are no pay phones on campus, he said, and the only phone open for use to students is at a receptionist's desk.

"I think she would know if they were making 911 hang-up calls," he said. "We haven't really got to the bottom of that."

This year both high schools have a resource office - which Kipper anticipates will reduce crime at Mountain Pointe.

"When there's no officer here, there's a sense . . . that the kids are anonymous, that they can get away with things because no one sees them," he said.

Kyrene Director of Community Education Kelly Alexander, principal at Akimel A-al for three years and assistant principal at Altadena and Akimel A-al for 10 years, said oftentimes calls for service to middle schools reflect more what is happening to children and not as much what they do.

Calls for child abuse and neglect are more common at middle schools than high schools, and part of that is because younger children often share more with their teachers, Alexander said.

This year, Kyrene's Ahwatukee middle schools do not have school resource officers, which means they will most likely end up calling police more, Alexander said.

Alexander said incidents do occur at Kyrene middle schools from time to time, but at a smaller number than in the community.

"On a whole, our schools are extremely safe, and the number of legal or criminal types of incidents that occur would be very minimal," she said.

Police calls to schools in Ahwatukee

The chart below lists the number of dispatched, callback and self-initiated calls for service to Phoenix police from five Ahwatukee high schools and middle schools. The data, obtained by The Republic through a state public records request, includes calls placed the past three years. 2011 data is through Aug. 14.