| NEWS | Quitting from p 13 a shift for our city” — an opportunity, he said, to “redefine and create better public safety for all.” As city officials emphasized, Williams had a long tenure with the Phoenix police. She worked on the force for more than 20 years, moving through the ranks from officer to assistant chief. In 2011, she left for Oxnard, California, a suburb northwest of Los Angeles, to head up its police force. In October 2016, she returned to her hometown of Phoenix, becoming the first woman to lead the agency. Joe Clure, the president of the Arizona Police Association and a former Phoenix cop, has known Williams for decades. They worked together, he recalled, in the Maryvale precinct, some 30 years ago, when Williams was still an unflinching beat cop. Since, Williams has led a “pretty amazing career,” he said. The Arizona Police Association repre- sents rank-and-file officers around the state (typically, police sergeants and lieu- tenants have their own, separate labor unions). Clure hesitated in response to questions about the state of the Phoenix force in recent months. “Obviously, unless you’ve been living in a cave the last year or so, there’s a tremen- dous amount of turmoil within the Phoenix Police Department,” he said. Asked if he believed Williams’ depar- ture could be related to that turmoil — and, specifically, the recent release of the recordings — Clure said: “I think you’d have to be kind of naive if you think that didn’t play some degree into the thought process,” he said, though emphasizing he “did not know for a fact” either way. The now-notorious “ACAB gang” scandal was hardly the only controversy of Williams’ tenure, perhaps as is to be expected when overseeing a police force in one of the largest cities in the country. In 2017, the death of Muhammad Muhaymin, a Black Muslim man, during an arrest prompted national shock and outcry — and a years-long, costly legal battle for the city. Prosecutor from p 11 Galvin, another county supervisor. “But I want Allister Adel to be remembered as a trailblazer. She was the first female appointed county attorney, and the first female elected county attorney.” “I’m heartbroken to learn of Allister’s 14 passing,” said Rachel Mitchell, the current Maricopa County Attorney who was appointed on April 20 to succeed Adel. “Her many years of service to our commu- nity leaves a legacy that impacted crime victims, first responders and animals, just to name a few.” Mass Liberation Arizona, which had In 2018, Phoenix cops shot enough people to rank the agency as the deadliest police force in the country. And by June 2020, even before the agency pushed to bring gang charges against Black Lives Matter protesters, officers were shooting rubber bullets at demonstrators and trading tokens that memorialized the August 2017 shooting of a protester with a PepperBall, during a presidential visit by Donald Trump. Clure’s main concern, though, involved allegations of Williams’ dishonesty about the 2020 gang charges. Such accusations at the highest levels of the department were “very, very concerning,” he said, and demoralizing for officers. It also set a poor standard for the department, he said, citing the proverb: “A fish rots from the head down.” The city now plans to bring in an “external interim” chief, who will “guide the department” through the DOJ probe. Given that the probe could drag on for years, as such investigations have elsewhere, it’s unclear what, exactly, “interim” means in this case. City spokesperson Dan Wilson said the city manager was looking for a chief with “specific skills and experience” related to the DOJ probe, and confirmed that the search for the permanent chief would not commence until the end of the investigation. Clure called the planned external hiring a “vote of no confidence” from the city in its department. “I think at this point it was a given,” he said. For N’sangou, the promise to bring in an external chief to lead the agency is all theat- rics. “I think Barton is trying to throw up a diversion,” she said. N’sangou has little faith in the idea that an external hire would do much to fix the agency, which was, she said, “riddled with issues that are much deeper than any individual officer.” Her organization’s focus, she said, would be to push the city to be transparent in the hiring process moving forward. “We’re going to demand transparency, we’re going to demand opportunities for the community to be involved,” she said. As for Williams, she said: “We want her to take accountability.” spearheaded a “resign or recall” campaign against Adel over the last nine months, wrote in a statement that Adel had “lost her life to the political machine that didn’t allow her to tend to her own humanity,” and offered condolences to her family. Clint Hickman, another member of the county board, said he had spoken to Adel’s father, who “wanted everyone to know how much he appreciates the outpouring of support for his daughter.” Her death had been a “shock,” Hickman said. Though a date for funeral services has not yet been announced, Hickman said the family hopes to provide details as quickly as possible. MAY 12TH– MAY 18TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
