Opening with a disclaimer isn’t my typical approach. It’s warranted this time. So, here goes.
I recognize policing is one of the most difficult and dangerous jobs in the world.
Law enforcement is essential in our society. We can’t function without it.
When done well, law enforcement deserves our respect and appreciation.
Impossible Job, Superman Expectations
We demand our police provide safety and security, solve every conflict, attend to the mentally ill, clean up crime-ridden neighborhoods, bust the drug lords, de-escalate domestic arguments, save American youth, and on and on and on. We demand police move seamlessly between being lethal commandos one minute and empathic counselors the next, ducking bullets and talking down a suicidal soul in the space of a single shift.
This Intensity Doesn’t Excuse Bad Behavior
It does not immunize those officers who violate human rights, who ignore use of force boundaries, who are racist or misogynist, whose personnel files are full of internal affairs investigations and reprimands. Those officers and their leaders must be held to account.
But…How?
This is the reckoning facing the Phoenix Police Department and the Phoenix City Council at this moment. Sometime soon, no one knows when, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will issue findings in a three-year investigation into Phoenix PD’s stunning disregard for human life, its tolerance of officers who trample constitutional rights, its cover-ups of missteps large and small, its multi-million dollar payoffs keeping the lid on misconduct. Here are the charges:
Neither City Hall nor Police HQ are handling the DOJ scrutiny well. They aren’t accepting oversight as an inevitable and appropriate response to well-documented and expensive failures. Those include, quoting from a Washington Post article:
The 2,600-officer police force has been ranked among the most violent in the nation, leading the United States with 23 fatal police shootings in 2018.
Its officers also faced sanctions for using excessive force and false charges against protesters during social justice demonstrations in 2020.
Phoenix officers have fatally shot at least 111 people since the beginning of 2015, according to The Washington Post’s database that tracks deadly shootings by police. That number outpaces the number of fatal shootings over that same period by police in Chicago and New York, both of which have much larger populations.
Resistance
Instead of facing the music, Phoenix is building multiple barriers to keep DOJ from pursuing a consent decree, a legal agreement for reform backed by the power of a federal court. Such an agreement will force independent monitoring of the Phoenix Police, one of the nation’s most violent big-city departments.
While manufacturing excuses and justifications for their past atrocities, neither the City nor PD is truthful about their liability and responsibility, nor about their options in fixing whatever the DOJ finds is broken. They are demanding any reform movement keep outsiders like the DOJ away.
If reform is necessary, Phoenix proposes this solution: we’ll police ourselves as both the regulated and the regulator. They’re offering this option knowing full well self-policing doesn’t work. Just look at how well the Roman Catholic Church is handling priest pedophilia and how Boeing failed to resolve its maintenance issues with the 737 Max.
Further, Phoenix should know better than to resist DOJ oversight. There’s a living example of atonement failure just a few blocks away in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. You’ll need some history to understand why the city’s political class is unwilling to submit to DOJ oversight.
Arpaio’s DOJ Dumpster Fire
What Phoenix fears most is the multi-million dollar dumpster fire of lawyer’s fees, fines, public hearings, legal settlements, federal court monitors, and toxic publicity Joe Arpaio handed to Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) from 2009-2015. The tab is nearing $270 million and growing.
Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “World’s Toughest Sheriff,” got in trouble by deploying MCSO to harass Latinos. Astute politically, Arpaio picked up on White Arizona’s distaste for Mexican immigrants and decided, falsely, a county sheriff should enforce federal immigration law. His neighborhood sweeps, driving-while-brown traffic stops, and illegal detentions launched him from a local oddity to a national “law and order” celebrity.
Arpaio is one of the original power players in contemporary Arizona’s, and now America’s, never-ending racism and political theater of border politics. The attention he got locally and nationally was intoxicating for a small-time politician. For most of his career Arpaio’s trademark were the wacky publicity stunts he created for willing local news organizations. His immigration sweeps catapulted him to front pages worldwide and raised millions of dollars from supporters cheering on his defiant law breaking. If you’re sensing some Trumpian attributes, you’re correct.
Some locals weren’t impressed and made noise about his antics. Arpaio responded with scorched earth. He targeted judges, activists, journalists, any citizen who objected to his lawlessness. His brown-shirted deputies and militia-like “posse” were deployed to surveil and harass them. “Sheriff Joe” became the most powerful elected leader in Arizona using uniforms and badges to scare, intimidate, and crush opponents.
Arpaio’s tactics finally caught the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union. Civil Rights lawsuits were filed. Arpaio defied and dismissed them while Maricopa county’s political leaders and prosecuting attorney played ignorant. The DOJ investigated and in 2015, Arpaio and his office were found to have violated the constitutional rights of Latinos through racial profiling and unlawful detention. Federal Judge Murray Snow ordered Arpaio and the county to correct their actions and assigned a Court Monitor to make sure the department reformed. Arpaio ignored the order and was eventually found guilty of contempt. The conviction was pardoned by Trump after Sheriff Joe failed to secure a seventh term in 2016. His many supporters remain loyal and committed to MCSO’s rogue actions and are a backbone of Trump support in Arizona.
MCSO Reform Failure
Arpaio’s successor, former Phoenix Police Sergeant Paul Penzone, inherited the court order, the equivalent of a shit sandwich. After committing to fixing MCSO, he spent seven years failing compliance.
$270 million tax dollars later, the Arpaio/Penzone/MCSO dumpster is still belching flames. MCSO remains dysfunctional, unable and perhaps unwilling to shake its racist roots. The agency is still profiling, its deputies protected from discipline due to Penzone’s hopelessly backlogged internal investigations unit. The federal court and monitors are unhappy. Penzone was held in contempt of court by Judge Snow.
Penzone bailed out with a year left in his second term, blaming his resignation on the burdens of DOJ-driven reform. Never mind his #1 job – what he campaigned on twice – was fixing MCSO. (Full disclosure, I was Penzone’s Director of Public Information from November 2016 until February 2018. I left after we disagreed over his resistance to running a transparent office.)
So, there’s Exhibit A, right in front of Phoenix, screaming at the city to avoid defiant resistance to DOJ, and accept court monitors. They can avoid becoming Arpaio II, not through self-regulation, but by accepting the fed oversight they earned by decades of bad behavior. Instead, they’re fighting it.
PHX PD’s “Kill The DOJ” Road Show
For months, Phoenix city council, city manager, the police unions and law enforcement leaders have taken their anti-DOJ plea on the road. They’re briefing reporters and citizen town halls with a slick campaign that says “leave us alone, we got this.” It’s an overt effort to pressure the Department of Justice - and maybe a Democratic President who desperately needs Arizona’s electoral votes - to back off.
The message: there’s no need for the DOJ. Phoenix PD is cooperating and changing for the better. Among its accomplishments, spelled out in a massive report, entitled The Road to Reform:
Uber cooperation with DOJ requests by providing 100,000 background documents, 20,000 body-worn camera videos, and recordings of 200 911 calls;
Authorized 200 “ride alongs,” opening everyday PD patrols to DOJ observers;
Instituted new training in both use of force and anti-racial discrimination;
Created new rules to protect First Amendment activities, balancing overall public safety with the individual rights of those who want to protest;
In consultation with social workers and health professionals, rethinking police interactions with people suffering from mental illness and those experiencing homelessness.
In a very strategic move, PD offers a highly loaded statistic. That is, in fiscal year 2022-2023 the city “spent $5.1 million” in taxpayer dollars to meet the demands of the DOJ’s probe. Actually, that’s not a lot of money for a police department with a BILLION DOLLAR annual budget, in a city with a $6 BILLION annual budget. It’s far less than the $12.3 million in settlements paid in 2023 alone to those abused by officers.
City leaders are well aware “spent $5.1 million” has a gut-level impact on voters. It plays both to State 48’s absolute allergy to government spending and its passionate support of head-busting law and order. The city knows it’s pushing those buttons, positioning outside oversight as a black hole sucking in millions of tax dollars, money it would rather spend on keeping taxpayers safe. In the public meeting I attended in late January, the argument clearly worked for a crowd heavy with “back the Blue” vibes.
In fact, what Phoenix PD is selling to its constituents is a false choice: Either we pay millions to appease Justice or we use our time and effort to keep people safe. As proof, they point to long standing and expensive DOJ oversight in Baltimore and Oakland and recent interventions in Louisville and Minneapolis. As politically effective as this strategy may be, it’s equally cynical, built on cherry picking and embellishing data and making false comparisons including one with Arpaio’s rogue department.
Cut The B.S. We Need DOJ Oversight
There are very few absolutes in life. After covering Phoenix for 25 years, I can say confidently it’s absolutely essential for Department of Justice to oversee Phoenix PD. Oversight will both protect human rights and build a department all Phoenicians will respect. My personal interactions with Phoenix PD as a journalist and a citizen lead me here for these reasons:
Phoenix PD’s almost complete disregard for rights and rules has a distinctive, F-you, cowboy swagger. Yes, effective policing anywhere often results in many bent and broken rules. But when asked to justify, explain, or account for itself, Phoenix PD’s arrogance is unmatched. There’s not even a hint of contrition. It just waves a middle finger at any person or institution who dares question it. And the chaos goes on.
Regularly, Phoenix cops shoot to kill knowing they will neither be prosecuted nor have to pay a civil penalty for their behavior. Officers’ addiction to deadly force is so frequent as to become routine, to be business as usual. This downplays the department’s reputation as America’s most violent, and dodges deserved hard questions and scrutiny. Phoenix PD’s gunplay isn’t “dog bites man,” the age-old journalistic cliche used to define what isn’t newsworthy. It’s “man bites dog,” meaning this IS newsworthy. In this case, man is biting dog… all the time… Phoenix needs DOJ attention.
PD and City Hall systemically cover up bad cop behavior by abusing public records laws. Its standard response to records requests by the public, the media, and attorneys is to slow-walk or stonewall. If they release anything, it’s a propaganda-like “critical incident” video, using doctored body camera footage embellished with their justification for violence. Instead of timely transparency, Phoenix PD plays a long game designed to wear down anyone who wants real evidence of police shortfalls. DOJ needs to shine a spotlight into the many records held secretly by Phoenix PD.
The city has done a poor job picking senior leadership. Since 1998, under seven chiefs, Phoenix PD’s leaders consistently act as if they are above the law. They do not answer to citizens, political leadership, or the media. Instead, they cater to police unions and law and order politicians who shoo away any questions about department behavior. Eventually, these leaders screw up and find themselves on the hot seat. They escape to publicly funded retirements. There’s no accountability for what happened on their watch. We expect leaders like these to self-regulate? Laughable.
Past attempts at self-regulation have failed miserably. In 2004 an armed confrontation between a couple of adrenaline driven cops and a mentally ill man left all three dead. An internal review produced the “Las Palmaritas Report” - named for the apartment complex where the shootout occurred. It recommended police end their take no prisoners approach. Las Pamaritas went nowhere. More recently, the man city hall hired to lead a shared citizen-department reform effort quit, citing the city’s resistant to hiring his recommended legal advisor. Apparently actual reform became too uncomfortable for the council and city manager.
Those Are Facts…This is Real Life
In 2023 alone, Phoenix paid $12.3 million in taxpayer dollars to people wronged by its police department. Here are four of the big settlements
$5.5 million to the family of Ali Osman, a mentally ill Somali man killed by Phoenix police. Osman was allegedly tossing rocks at a patrol car.
$5 million to the family of 19-year old Dion Humphrey, injured in a case of mistaken identity. Humphrey was hit by a rubber bullet fired by Phoenix cops. They were looking to arrest his half-brother.
$1,000,000 to the mother of George and Emmett Cocreham. The brothers were killed by Phoenix PD as they responded to a domestic violence call made by their mother. She expected police to break up a family fight, not kill her sons.
$650,000 to the family of Casey Wells. Wells was tased by officers who responded to calls of him sitting naked in the middle of a Phoenix street, practicing yoga. Wells had a deep and known history of drug abuse and mental illness.
Internal affairs reviewed each of these cases seeking reasons to justify use of force. But rather than risk having their actions judged by a jury, the city settled.
I don’t begrudge the families their settlements. But, going this route deprives the public of learning why these officers chose to shoot. All of us deserve to know. We need fresh eyes with real authority to find out what the hell is going on here and what Phoenix PD must do to fix it.