Perhaps taking a page out of Mad Jack's playbook, the top cop for the Pasadena Unified School District has been placed on paid leave pending an investigation into allegations that he placed a video camera in a storage room where employees change their clothes.
Police Chief Jarado L. Blue, 47, was taken off active duty last week after officials received two anonymous tips about the alleged electronic spying in an area where police employees regularly undress, said district spokesman Chuck Champlin.
"Although the charge is circumstantial, it is serious," said Champlin. Until his leave, Blue supervised a department of 11 sworn and armed police officers who patrol the public schools in Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre. Champlin said Blue has acknowledged testing the video camera on one occasion for 20 minutes in the room. "[Blue] said the test was done during a portion of the day when no one was undressing," he added.
School board member Alex P. Aghajanian said Blue's leave is the best step until it's determined what is going on. District officials said the remote video camera, which sends a picture to a separate monitor, was purchased by the school police after a series of break-ins. Before its installation, it was kept in the storage room in plain sight, district officials said.
The police supply room, Champlin said, is a lockable multipurpose room where a microwave oven, a small refrigerator and photocopier paper are kept but did concede that over time it has become a place used by both male and female employees as a locker room. At the time the allegations were made, the camera already had been moved to monitor a school for break-ins.
The school police force is setting up a five-member panel to investigate the allegations.
