Arrest snafu lands UofA police in court

TUCSON — A local mom is waging a legal war against University of Arizona, claiming the university torpedoed her career as a federal employee by accusing her of using her security clearance to look into the details of her son’s arrest.

The 10-page complaint in Pima County Superior Court comes from Janet Hopkins, a former investigator for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management who did deep security background checks on federal workers to see if they posed a national security threat.

In other words, Hopkins had high-level access to all kinds of records. The question in this case is whether she abused it or simply followed the rules the general public faces for getting arrest records.

Either way, the case promises to be an embarrassment for the federal government or police at the state’s second-largest university.

In September 2007, Hopkins’ son, Moses, a student at UofA, was arrested by university police. At the time, she was working for the federal government, and went to police headquarters to research a new applicant in the course of her job as a background screener.

While she was the there, Hopkins requested information on her son’s arrest. She filed a public-records request to obtain the records, according to the complaint. A clerk told her that her son’s case was still pending, so Hopkins came back the following week.

The complaint states that she showed up with her wallet but without any credentials afforded to her job. When a clerk told her the case was still open, Hopkins asked to speak to the detective in charge of the case, Martin Ramirez.

Hopkins claims Ramirez started asking probing questions about her husband’s date of birth and middle initial. She declined to answer, accusing the detective and the police department of discriminating against her son and her family instead. The Hopkins family is African American.

The resulting fight pits the detective’s word against that of Hopkins. The police say she has abused her position and government credentials to obtain arrest records, while Hopkins says police falsified documents to prove their case and issued slanderous comments that cost her her job in January.

Tucson lawyers Don Awerkamp and Ivelisse Bonilla are representing Hopkins.