10 June 5th-June 11th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Demanding More 3 years after cops let her son drown, Tempe woman demands city do more. BY TJ L’HEUREUX O n May 28, dozens of people gathered near Tempe Town Lake to mark a somber anniversary. Three years earlier, 34-year-old unhoused Tempe resident Sean Bickings drowned in the lake. Two Tempe police officers stood by and watched, unwilling to go into the water and unequipped with the proper tools or training to intervene. Bickings’ death made national headlines. The scandal forced Tempe to make some safety changes, including the instal- lation of flotation rings around the lake. But at a May 28 memorial for Bickings, his friends and family — including his mother, Turee Toro — criticized Tempe officials for not making more changes to improve safety at the lake. Others have drowned in the lake since Bickings’ death. “Three years after Sean Bickings’ tragic death, the City of Tempe and the Tempe police still have not added enough safety precautions to Tempe Town Lake,” said Benjamin Taylor, a lawyer who is repre- senting Toro in a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, in a statement to New Times. “Other people have fallen in the lake and drowned since Sean Bickings’ death. We need to see more improvements to minimize the incidents at the lake.” In a statement, Tempe spokesperson Kris Baxter-Ging said the city “sympa- thizes with those who mourn the loss of Sean Bickings” and that it has added “improved water safety measures and new procedures.” Those include the dozens of flotation rings and having park rangers patrol the lake. But many people at the May 28 gath- ering doubted the efficacy of those measures, particularly the flotation rings. “There’s not enough, for one thing,” Toro said. “They’re too far apart and if anybody pulls one out, it doesn’t notify the fire department or the police department at all. To me, they’re just like…a decoration.” In 2023, Toro filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Tempe, seeking $3 million for emotional damages. That lawsuit is ongoing, and a Maricopa County Superior Court judge rejected a city motion to dismiss it last year. The Tempe City Council discussed the lawsuit with counsel in an executive session on May 20, and Baxter-Ging declined to comment on the lawsuit. The drowning Memorial attendees described Bickings as generous and caring, someone who was concerned for the unhoused long before he joined their ranks. He and Toro moved to the Valley from Utah when he was young, and seeing unhoused people was a novel experience for him. On trips to McDonald’s, he’d want to help. “He’d say, ‘Mom, what about that guy right there?’” Toro said. “So I’d say, ‘What do you wanna do? Do you wanna get some- thing for yourself or for somebody else?’ And that’s what he would choose — some- body else.” For more than a decade leading up to his death, Bickings lived on the streets. Tempe resident Kush Patel, who got to know Bickings when Patel was a student at Arizona State University, said Bickings would “give you the shirt off his back. And I’ve seen him do it.” Ben Jeffrey, a formerly unhoused military veteran who has since become one of the Valley’s foremost advo- cates for the homeless, said Bickings was important to many people. “We all consider him like a best friend,” Jeffrey said. “That’s the thing, all of us — not just like one or two people, but everybody.” Two days before Bickings drowned, he and other unhoused people met with Tempe officials, including Mayor Corey Woods, about a plan to let unhoused people quash their misdemeanor warrants if they are willing to receive social service assistance. Forty-eight hours later, an outstanding warrant was the reason Bickings went into the water. Bickings and his Turee Toro’s son, Sean Bickings, drowned in Tempe Town Lake in 2022 as two Tempe police officers watched. (TJ L’Heureux) | NEWS | >> p 12
