6 June 27th-July 3rd, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | An Excessive Force Justice Department says Phoenix cops committed “severe” civil rights violations. BY TJ L’HEUREUX F or years, the Phoenix Police Department regularly committed a litany of civil rights violations, including discriminating against people of color, using excessive and unnecessarily deadly force and arresting unhoused people without cause, according to a long- awaited report by the U.S. Justice Department. The 126-page report was released June 13 after the DOJ spent nearly three years investigating Phoenix police for its history of unconstitutional policing. The probe, which examined police behavior between 2016 and 2022, was conducted by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. In a virtual press conference the day the report was released, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Kristen Clarke summarized the depart- ment’s conclusions. “Our findings today reveal very signifi- cant and severe violations of federal law and the Constitution,” said Clarke, who leads the Civil Rights Division. “We are prepared to do the hard work to address these reforms because the people of Phoenix deserve fair, nondiscriminatory and constitutional policing.” The report found five major systemic constitutional violations: • The use of excessive force, including unjustified deadly force • The unlawful detention, citation and arrest of people experiencing homeless- ness, and the unlawful disposal of their belongings • Discrimination against Black, Hispanic and Native American people • Free speech violations • Discrimination against people with behavioral health disabilities Additionally, the DOJ found that the police department fails to accept and thor- oughly investigate complaints of officer misconduct and does not adequately disci- pline offers who engage in misconduct. The department also has poor policies and defi- cient training that the DOJ found contrib- utes to its systemic constitutional violations. Clarke said the DOJ will continue to have conversations with the city about possible reforms, leaving open the possibility of seeking a court-ordered consent decree that would subject Phoenix police to indepen- dent monitoring. The city has resisted the notion that a consent decree is required. Excessive force The department shot and killed people at one of the highest rates in the country in the years before the investigation began, a significant number of which the DOJ said did not meet constitutional standards. From 2018 to 2023, the department had one of the highest rates of fatal shootings among major cities across the country. During that time, there were 74 fatal shoot- ings. Police shot and killed 12 people in 2023 and have shot and killed eight so far this year. The department taught officers tactics that were “dangerous, unnecessary and unreasonable,” the DOJ said, including that all force — even deadly force — would lead to de-escalation. One police official told the DOJ that this distorted view was “ingrained in the vernacular of the department.” The DOJ found that officers fired their weapons at people who presented no immediate threat and shot when their own “reckless tactics” magnified their own risk. Additionally, officers improperly used choking tactics, including on people who had not committed a crime. Officers also unreasonably delayed rendering aid to people they shot and used force against people who were already incapacitated. Once, the DOJ said, cops shot a woman 10 times and waited nine minutes to approach her immobile body. She died of her injuries. Those issues were exacerbated by poor training, the DOJ said. Phoenix police training explicitly encouraged officers to use immediate and indiscriminate force even when there was no legal justification to do so. In training sessions observed by investigators, instructors directed officers to use force without warning or just seconds after arriving at a scene — some- times “before even trying to speak to a person,” the report said — regardless of whether or not any threat was present. The report found police fired tasers at people with little or no warning, including at people who had surrendered, had their hands up or were physically restrained. Police also failed to maintain reasonable control over K-9s, with one dog biting the arm of an unarmed homeless man for 47 seconds, 30 of which were after officers had handcuffed the man. The department also lacked meaningful practices to properly review use-of-force incidents. In both 2021 and 2022, the DOJ found, Phoenix police determined more than 98% of force incidents complied with department policy. Violating rights of unhoused people For the first time in the DOJ’s history, Clarke said, it found Phoenix police routinely violated the rights of the city’s large unhoused population, arresting unhoused people and destroying their property without cause. From 2016 to 2022, the DOJ’s report said, 37% of those arrested by Phoenix police were people experiencing home- lessness, even though fewer than 1% of Phoenix residents are unhoused. The DOJ said many of those arrests were unconstitutional. In 2022, a federal court ordered the city to stop enforcing laws that criminalized homelessness. However, the DOJ said, Phoenix police “did not train officers how to follow the law nor supervise them to ensure they did.” In general, the report found that the agency’s approach to policing unhoused people violates the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable search and seizure. Officers often stopped and investigated unhoused people without reasonable suspicion and detained or cited them without a lawful basis. The city and Phoenix police also seized and destroyed the personal property of unhoused people without due process. Advocates for the unhoused say police have continued the illegal practice of arresting the unhoused and disposing of their belongings. Racial discrimination The DOJ said Phoenix police dispropor- tionately cited and arrested Black, Hispanic and Native American people compared with white people, violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Safe Streets Act. Those arrests included the enforcement of alcohol and low-level drug offenses. Both Black and Hispanic people were significantly more likely to be cited for such offenses compared with white people. Native Americans were 44 times more likely to be arrested for consuming alcohol than white people. The same bias appeared in the depart- ment’s traffic stops. Black people comprise 7.4% of Phoenix’s population but are arrested or cited three times as often as white people for traffic-equipment-related offenses. Hispanic people also disproportionally face citations or arrests for traffic violations. Officers also cited or arrested cyclists for biking on the wrong side of the road almost eight times more often in predomi- nantly non-white neighborhoods than in predominantly white neighborhoods. As recently as May 28, Phoenix police shot and killed a Hispanic man after stopping him for not having lights on his bicycle. The DOJ said its statistical analysis vali- dated “long-standing community criticism that officers use race and national origin as a factor in their traffic enforcement.” Despite those concerns, the DOJ noted, Phoenix police told investigators they were “unaware of any credible evidence of discriminatory policing.” The report also found that the depart- ment lacks adequate internal policies, whether through data review or miscon- duct investigations, to detect patterns of discriminatory policing. Between Jan. 1, 2016, and April 1, 2022, the DOJ said, Phoenix police completed only two misconduct investigations into allegations of bias or racial profiling. Free speech violations The DOJ said police used indiscriminate force against protesters to deter free speech, falsified allegations to arrest protest leaders and retaliated against people critical of the police. Many of the incidents the DOJ cited occurred during the summer of 2020, when protests over police brutality roiled the city’s streets. In that time, the DOJ said, cops often failed to warn protesters about shooting projectiles, such as stun bags and PepperBalls, and used excessive force on protesters who were not a threat. One man was shot by PepperBalls in the back “even as he bicycled away in the direction officers had ordered him to go,” the report said. Another A report released June 13 by the U.S. Justice Department found that Phoenix police routinely use excessive force and are taught that more force will de-escalate conflicts. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Justice Department) | NEWS | >> p 9