7 Feb 22nd–Feb 28th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Ganging Up Preston Lord was among 259 homicides. Why is he getting all the attention? BY STEPHEN LEMONS M aricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell spent most of a recent press conference describing the “extraordi- nary amount of resources” her office has devoted to the investigation into the brutal beating and death of Preston Lord. The 16-year-old was beaten at a Halloween party in Queen Creek on Oct. 28. He died two days later. Mitchell told reporters that prosecutors are poring over the 2,000-page police report, 2,000 pieces of evidence and 600 videos submitted to her office in late December by the Queen Creek Police Department. All of it, she said, must be vetted for possible use against the seven suspects mentioned in the report. Mitchell said she receives daily briefings on the Lord case and recently met with Lord’s parents. Her staff is looking into any connection between Lord’s homicide and a spate of violence in Queen Creek and Gilbert, allegedly committed by a gang of East Valley teens known as the Gilbert Goons. Asked how many people she has working on the Lord homicide, she said, “a lot.” “By that, I mean, we have investigators, we have prosecutors, we have support staff, we have victim advocates, we have crim- inal analysts … (and) paralegals dedicated to the review of this case,” she said during the Jan. 24 press conference. Mitchell claimed her office was “moving quickly” on the case and said suspects may also face criminal street gang charges. She also pointed to the Jan. 18 indict- ment of Christopher Fantastic and Aris Michael Arredondo. Both men, 18, are charged with aggravated robbery and aggravated assault for allegedly attacking a juvenile on Aug. 18. Since the press conference, Mitchell’s office added additional indictments. As of Feb. 7, a total of eight people across five cases have been indicted since January for aggravated assaults in East Valley teen violence cases. None of the indictments are related to the Lord case, though. During the press conference, reporters pressed Mitchell on when indictments would come in Lord’s homicide and whether she would seek the death penalty for his killers. There are murderers walking the street, and children are fearful, one reporter said. Another reporter asked: Why not charge some people now while developing the case on others? “I’m not in a situation where I can just lock them up and hope the evidence comes together,” Mitchell said. “If I go to a grand jury, all I have to show is probable cause, and then I’m just going to hope that I have a reasonable likelihood of conviction? “That’s not ethical, and we’re not going to do it that way,” she added. ‘We do care about other children’ The media’s intense interest in Lord and the Gilbert Goons was evidenced by the Arizona Republic sending two reporters to Mitchell’s press conference to query her on the roiling controversy surrounding the case. ABC 15 sent three reporters. Anger over the slow reaction by law enforcement and public officials to the Lord case recently led Gilbert Mayor Brigette Peterson to halt her re-election campaign. Mitchell is up for re-election in November, seeking her first four-year term. Yet, Lord’s killing was just one of 259 murders in Maricopa County in 2023, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. So New Times posed this question to Mitchell at her press conference: Is it unfair to other grieving families that the Lord case receives so much attention and resources? If the victim were a Black or hispanic kid in South Phoenix, would the reaction be different? “I would ask you to look at our other recent efforts,” Mitchell responded. “One of the attorneys that’s working on (the Lord) case, for example, tried seven cases last year. We just got a 37-year sentence on somebody who murdered her child. So we do care about other children.” Mitchell also pointed to her career as a sex crimes prosecutor. “I spent the vast majority of my career protecting children of all Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said prosecutors are reviewing more than 2,000 pieces of evidence in Preston Lord’s October death. (Photo by Katya Schwenk) | NEWS | >> p 8
