| NEWS | Detectives from p 10 “Cops send off a DNA sample and say, ‘okay, let’s wait a year for this,’” said Richardson, the retired detective in Mesa. “It just doesn’t work.” For homicide detectives, the first 48 hours can mean the difference between a closed case and a cold case. So when DNA tests come back months or years later and don’t point to the prime suspect, things can get dicey. “It’s going to take a major political and financial commitment to make a change,” Hargrove said. “Technology has not been the magic bullet we thought it would be. I don’t think we’re going to see any kind of dramatic improvement in clearances with this app.” But its developers believe that big break is right around the corner. The app isn’t entertainment for true crime aficionados as it may seem, Mandt says. It’s a journalism project and database with the sole purpose of offering a portal for those seeking a fresh perspective on homicide cases worldwide. “I believe the innovation of AR tech- nology in criminal cases is as paramount as the introduction of DNA, and will be crit- ical to the future of solving cases,” said Paul Holes, a missing person investigator and AR content creator for CrimeDoor. Most of the content on the app is free, and there are no ads, Mandt pointed out. Creators do not have entertainment value in mind when they replicate thousands of grisly murder scenes and missing person posters, like Robinson’s. Mandt and his crew came to Phoenix on Saturday to raise awareness for Robinson and other missing persons in Arizona. “People are very interested in the content in Arizona,” Mandt said. “If you look at data where people search, Phoenix gets a ton of attention.” The fact that the Grand Canyon State ranks fourth in the country in missing persons might stir their curiosity. The CrimeDoor app features more than 200,000 hours of interactive content. According to developers, two or three new cases are added to the database every day. “It may be the thing that a responsible citizen sees, and something jogs their memory,” said Richardson. “It could be a case that’s been sitting idly for 15 years and somebody new picks up the case file, and they have a different visual perspective than anyone else who has looked at it.” He’s still haunted by cases that he couldn’t solve. And he believes that, with “intelligence-based investigating” during his career, he might have solved those cases. “If I had new tools to utilize, fuck yeah,” Richardson said. “I’d take it. Technology is evolving.” Church and State Another Phoenix congregation sues the DEA over religious use of ayahuasca. BY KATYA SCHWENK T 12 he Church of the Eagle and the Condor, a religious congrega- tion in Phoenix, gets its name from a prophecy originating in the Andes of Peru, which fore- tells a cultural unification of the North and South Americas. In fulfillment of this prophecy, they say, members of the church drink ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew from South America. The drug, which has a long history of reli- gious use, induces intense visions and hallucinations when ingested. Over the last two years, however, ship- ments of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor’s ayahuasca have been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which says the drug is contraband. The small community has been threatened with federal prosecution. Earlier this month, the church began a legal battle over these seizures, aiming to become one of the relatively few ayahuasca churches nationwide that have won legal recognition by the U.S. government. On June 9, attorneys for the Church of the Eagle and the Condor filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and its parent agency DHS over the confiscations and warnings by federal agents about possible escalation. These actions amounted to a “substantial burden on [the church’s] exercise of their religious beliefs,” attorneys for the church argued. The government has yet to respond to these claims in legal pleadings. The Phoenix place of worship is now the latest of a number of ayahuasca churches in Arizona that have, in the last two years, launched fights for legal status. One church in Phoenix filed a similar lawsuit just over one year ago. It claims that the U.S. govern- ment, in its efforts to crack down on drugs coming into the country, is bypassing long- standing religious freedoms. One, the Vine of Light Church, also based in Phoenix, was the subject of a Phoenix New Times story last fall, which delved into a drug raid of that church by a federal task force, and the church’s >> p 14 JUNE 30TH–JULY 6TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
