The University of Arizona police officer who was in charge of investigating harassment claims against a former student later accused of killing Professor Thomas Meixner has been promoted to lieutenant a year after the fatal shooting.
UAPD officer Colin Keating was promoted last month from sergeant to lieutenant in a public ceremony, according to the UAPD Facebook account.
He became involved with the Meixner case when the alleged shooter, Murad Dervish, a former graduate student in the hydrology and atmospheric sciences department, began harassing several of the department's professors, including Meixner.
Many in the department felt Keating did not handle the harassment case with the appropriate sense of urgency.
"I wonder if he feels any shame from all of this," said Justin Headley, a graduate student in the department. "I don't understand how he could continue even working in law enforcement, honestly."
Headley added that the promotion was "incredibly insulting."
Keating received multipleΒ emails from concerned professors about Dervish's harassing emails and calls, according to public records released last year by the Pima County Attorney's Office. The professors included copies of the emails, in which Dervish called them slurs and threatened to "blow [their] brains out."Β
Keating didn't share the same level of concern as the faculty members afflicted, however.
"Due to the threatening comments that Dervish has made over the last several months, staff within the department are on edge and there is an underlying level of concern that he may try and show up on campus and cause harm to those he feels are responsible for his dismissal," Keating wrote in his report. "While the concerns from the staff are real and warranted, there is no indication at this time that Dervish intends to return to campus."
His report of the harassment was written just two weeks before Dervish allegedly returned to campus with a gun and shot Meixner.
The UAPD did submit their report to the Pima County Attorney's Office, which declined to take action in the case. The case was submitted with a large log of other, more minor offenses like underage drinking. Dervish was also previously expelled and barred from campus.
The Meixner family declined to comment, as did the University of Arizona, whose spokeswoman said they do not comment on personnel matters.
Keating's promotion was "a bit of a gut punch," saidΒ Kathy Varin, the senior business manager in the hydrology and atmospheric science department.
"With the new interim police chief, I want to believe that things will get better, that there will be more transparency," she said. "Then you hear that the guy who didn't help your department got promoted. It made me less trustful of the police department."
Varin was present when Meixner, her boss, was shot.Β
"It's unacceptable and inexcusable that the UA didn't do more to help protect the people in our department," she said, choking up. "[Keating] basically said that this man wasn't a threat. How ironic and sad."
Keating's promotion to lieutenant means he will now provide direct supervision, mentoring and development to subordinate employees, according to the internal job posting. As a lieutenant his yearly salary was bumped up fromΒ $82,587Β to $95,741.
Despite his disappointment about the promotion, Headley said he feels "pretty helpless about the whole situation."
"If the police didn't listen to us before, I don't know why they would now," he said. "We haven't been given a lot of reasons to start trusting the police and believing they care about our concerns."
