For as long as he could remember, Patrick Melvin knew what he wanted to do in life.

“This is going to sound kind of funny, but I was a cop kid,” he said. “I always wanted to be a cop.”

It was the structure, the uniformity, the rigidity, and the call to protect and serve that drew him to policework. Some of his personality traits in early childhood foreshadowed this.

“My older brother makes fun of me because he says, ‘I knew you were going to be a cop. You used to tattletale all the time,’” Melvin said with a laugh. “I hate that he tells that story, but I was always drawn to it, and he knew.”

That passion led to nearly four decades in the profession, growing from a 1985 police recruit with the Phoenix Police Department to Maricopa’s first police chief and a string of other leadership roles in Arizona and Texas.

Now, he’s vying for his bigger post yet: Pinal County sheriff.

“I feel I still have a lot to give to the community in the area of law enforcement,” he said. “I feel I have the opportunity to elevate the professionalism of law enforcement in our county.”

Melvin, a 59-year-old Democrat who lives in Cobblestone Farms, won his party’s nomination uncontested and faces Ross Teeple (R-Cactus Forest) in the Nov. 5 general election.

But first, a quick intro

After serving more than two decades with Phoenix PD, Melvin made a bold move: build a brand-new Maricopa Police Department from scratch in 2006. He was the first hire and bore badge No. 001 on his chest.

“Our first police station was a giant manufactured building,” he recalled. “We didn’t have any radio systems, uniforms, badges, patches. We had to develop all that stuff, the designs and police cars. Seeing how it’s grown is absolutely awesome.”

During his five years at MPD, Melvin not only helped build the department from the ground up but also worked as the city’s public safety director and assistant city manager for a time. He was named “Maricopa Man of the Year” by a local business in 2008 and accepted the role of national president for the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives in 2010.

With these and additional experiences under his belt, Melvin said he feels he’s ready to tackle the top cop position in the county.

“I always say it’s an honor to serve and I really believe the sheriff’s job is to make sure deputies, professional staff and detention officers have the resources to serve and protect,” Melvin said.

He made enemies. Now, no one’s talking

There’s another side to his story.

Unsavory rumors flit around — Melvin’s strained relationships with city leaders, or how he skipped town and left his department stranded during Hurricane Harvey as a police chief in Port Arthur, Texas.

The Port Arthur Police Association did not return multiple requests for comment on the hurricane issue, nor the 42-page statement it sent to the city manager about Melvin’s unacceptable job performance. A Freedom of Information Act request to the city of Port Arthur only yielded a dozen pages of human resources documents.

A similar request to the city of Maricopa was met with a devasting answer for any journalist: all files were destroyed.

“The city of Maricopa is no longer in possession of your desired record. All records pertaining to the individual in question have met retention and are no longer in the city’s databases,” said Maricopa Records Administrator Andy Juarez.

Meanwhile, the Maricopa Fraternal Order of Police vetoed providing InMaricopa a statement about Melvin or even explaining what a vote of no confidence means for a police union. One of its leaders said Melvin was forced to resign from MPD after the vote.

Calls to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Police Department’s public information desk consistently went unanswered.

His eyes wandered

Another of Melvin’s controversies began at the end of his five-year tenure with SRPMIC PD in 2016. The tribe placed Melvin on administrative leave in May that year for two weeks before he was forced to resign as chief of police.

One former Salt River officer told the Casa Grande Dispatch it was due to Melvin’s “constant wandering eye for police chief jobs in larger cities.”

He doesn’t dispute that.

“I became a finalist for the Phoenix Police Department’s police chief position and it came out in the paper,” Melvin said. “They saw that as not being loyal to their particular agency and said let’s agree to separate.”

Sources familiar with Melvin at SRPMIC PD said Melvin interviewed for the Phoenix job while he was on the clock at Salt River, leading to his forced resignation.

Five months later, he accepted the role of police chief for the Port Arthur Police Department. The city sits about 80 miles east of Houston, Melvin’s birthplace.

He made waves. At a cost

Former Port Arthur City Manager Brian McDougal said Melvin stood out among five candidates in an “exhaustive” national search. Their previous police chief retired after 40 years with the department.

“Everyone felt he was the right guy for the job,” McDougal said. “We had council interviews, city manager interviews, a community forum. He was a highly focused individual and steady.”

But the honeymoon didn’t last.

Melvin said he was hired to “change the culture,” correcting mismanagement, updating protocols and policies, and, in some cases, indicting officers for their misconduct.

In the eyes of Frank Ramirez, who was promoted to deputy chief shortly after Melvin began working with the department, those squabbles came from Melvin’s campaign against “good old boy” culture in the department.

“I still have friends there,” Ramirez said, noting he could not “get too much into it without selling out everyone in the department.”

But Melvin “brought a professionalism the department wasn’t used to. He kept everybody accountable, and it was something they weren’t used to,” he said.

Some of those issues were eliminating the option for unworked overtime pay, penalizing officers for working other jobs while clocked in, which was a tad ironic, and making deals with store owners to write parking tickets in exchange for free merchandise.

Officers were put on administrative leave, faced disciplinary action and some even lost their jobs under Melvin’s leadership, according to Ramirez.

“The agency wasn’t used to that kind of transparency, and as a result, a lot of people’s jobs were jeopardized because they were being exposed,” Melvin said.

What resulted was turmoil between the Port Arthur Police Association, the city of Port Arthur and Melvin. PAPA eventually submitted a 42-page document to McDougal explaining its vote of no confidence in the chief, citing response mismanagement during Hurricane Harvey, increased litigation and staff turnover.

Eventually, Melvin was forced to resign a third time in 2018.

“I don’t think there was much validity to that vote,” McDougal said. “I think the labor union was quite upset with the city, and they took it out on him.”

‘He’s ready’

After that resignation, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office hired Melvin in late 2019 as division commander for the Sheriff’s Information Management Services. He was a finalist for police chief of Memphis, St. Louis and Seattle, among others.

He resigned from MCSO last year to begin campaigning for Pinal County sheriff.

But the reputation he made for himself in Maricopa, Salt River and Port Arthur lingers.

Many InMaricopa readers brought up these unhappy memories in response to a campaign ad for Melvin last month, along with other whispers.

“We do not need an anti-Second Amendment, pro-covid lockdowns liberal in charge of our sheriff’s office,” said voter Todd Dalton.

But despite the blemishes, Melvin said he’s still confident in his ability to lead the county.
“I feel those experiences have made me stronger and I’ve had the opportunity to work with many agencies,” he said. “I’ll be able to take bits and pieces of those experiences to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and I think that’s a good thing.”

Ramirez and McDougal both offered their blessings.

“I absolutely think he’s fit to serve the role,” Ramirez said. “I think as we go on, everyone learns, and everyone grows. He’s a professional and I think he could do it for sure.”

Added McDougal: “I think he’s ready to be a sheriff. He has his education and experience. You know, anybody can be a police officer, but only good officers define the badge. He’s one of those.”