I n the sweltering summer of 2022, the Phoenix Police Department was almost a year into a Department of Justice civil rights investigation when it found itself facing a different kind of crisis: staffing. About 20 officers were leaving the department every month, said senior police officials, and recruitment was lagging woefully. The Phoenix City Council swiftly passed an ordinance that boosted new recruits’ pay by $20,000 a year, making Phoenix police officers the highest-paid cops in Arizona. Soon, Scotty Bach joined Phoenix police as a civilian investigator. Within five months, he became a Phoenix police officer. His swift rise owed in part to deep experience. Roughly nine out of 10 cops the department hired in 2023 had been new recruits, but Bach came to Phoenix with more than 20 years of policing expe- rience in Seattle. That seemingly made him eligible for a hiring bonus of $7,500, since he wasn’t a fresh recruit the depart- ment had to spend money to train. (Because his hire as an officer came after his initial civilian hire, Phoenix police officials later determined he was not eligible for the hiring bonus, the city said in a statement.) Yet, like many veteran officers hired into short-staffed police departments, he also brought an unsavory past. Bach is also one of six Seattle police officers whom the Seattle Police Department investigated for their presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability confirmed that Bach was present at the Capitol. But investigators found “inconclu- sive” evidence of misconduct and did not sustain any disciplinary charges against him. Bach left the department after the investigation was concluded. Bach’s hiring in Phoenix offers a caveat about the aggressive drive to fill vacant positions, especially in a city where police routinely abuse their power in the streets. BETRAYAL OF THE TAXPAYERS In May, the Trump administration dismissed the damning DOJ report that catalogued a pattern and practice of abusive behavior by Phoenix police. The cynical disavowal of the DOJ’s findings came months before the department hired a new police chief: Matt Giordano, who until recently was the executive director of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, or AZPOST. Under pressure, the department is trying to distance itself from its recent past All the more reason to consider the pedigree of its newest veteran officers. Georgetown University law professor Vida Johnson, who has written about far- right extremism in policing on Jan. 6, told Invisible Institute, The Appeal and Phoenix New Times that by attending an event that challenged the presidential elec- tion results, officers undermine their ability to serve in law enforcement, even if they were not charged with wrongdoing. “That’s a big betrayal of the taxpayers in my mind, and it really undermines commu- nity safety in a myriad ways,” said Johnson. Johnson said it’s still an issue if someone traveled across the continent to attend Trump’s “Save America” rally without participating in the insurrection. She said attendees fell into two camps: those who believed the election was stolen, and those who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the results even though they understood he had actually lost. “Either way, this is not someone you would want in law enforcement,” Johnson said. Those in the first category are likely “prone to conspiracy theories,” while those in the second “don’t care about the rule of law” or “our American institutions that are centered around the idea of liberal democ- racy.” (Other First Amendment experts have disagreed about the implications of attending the Jan. 6 rally by police officers.) In a statement, the Phoenix Police Department said Bach passed “an extensive and complete background investigation.” After more than a year of waiting, Invisible Institute, The Appeal and New Times received public documents from Phoenix police related to Bach. The department provided a heavily redacted 649-page file that briefly mentions investigators being aware of Bach’s presence at Jan. 6 but other- wise does not show them reconciling that fact with their hiring standards. Bach’s transfer from Seattle to Phoenix was approved not only by Phoenix back- ground investigators but also by officials with AZPOST, who audit the paperwork before it can be finalized. “We have to approve a new hire audit before an officer’s appointment can be finalized,” Giordano wrote in an email in his previous capacity as AZPOST executive director. “If we iden- tify an issue we send it back to the agency for them to address. Some agencies use a web based platform and grant us access for the individuals file to review for our audit, while others provide us a hard copy HR file for our review. Either way, we do not remain in possession of the material after our review.” The statement shared by Phoenix police included the finding that, after 20 years with the Seattle Police Department, Bach had “retired in good standing.” Yet it’s clear that Bach prefers the public not know about his extracurriculars. In 2021, after a Seattle University law student and others filed a records request, he and five other officers who were facing Jan. 6 investigations sued to prevent their names from being publicly released. This despite the fact that Divest SPD, an activist group that helps maintain a public database of complaints against Seattle officers, had already identified him and other officers by comparing publicly available datasets. Of those six officers who were investi- gated, two were publicly named when Seattle police leadership fired them for trespassing into restricted areas during the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt. A cop attended the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Phoenix PD later hired him. By Yana Kunichoff & Sam Stecklow TO PROTEST AND SERVE
