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The Phoenix Police Department is one of the most violent police departments in the United States.
If you follow local politics, that statement may have been blasted on your social media feed for a brief time in June. This came as the culmination of a three-year investigation into Phoenix PD by the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ concluded that Phoenix PD regularly uses excessive violence and unlawful practices that violate the Fourth Amendment, First Amendment, Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Americans with Disabilities Act.
While many people may have seen the bullet point summaries published by news outlets, over four months later, the vast majority of Phoenicians remain unaware of the report's specific details and accounts.
'Force first' practices
The DOJ report suggests that the excessive violence displayed by Phoenix PD is the result of a fundamental flaw in the way the department teaches its officers how to de-escalate situations.
"Rather than teaching that de-escalation strategies are designed to eliminate or reduce the need to use force, PhxPD has misappropriated the concept and teaches officers that all force — even deadly force — is de-escalation," the DOJ said.
This warped perception of de-escalation has led to "force first" practices among Phoenix PD, where violence is not something that officers must resort to, but instead the quickest and easiest way to de-escalate almost any situation.
In one instance mentioned in the report, officers arrived at an apartment complex and heard screaming. An officer burst into the apartment, picked a woman up from behind, dragged her outside, then "kicked her legs out from under her and slammed her face-first into the sidewalk, splitting her chin on the concrete." The DOJ said it was "unclear the woman even knew it was a police officer who grabbed her."
On another occasion, officers spotted a man with a stolen car. He put his hands up as soon as police approached him, and officers told him to lie on the ground. Before the man had an opportunity to respond, an officer grabbed his hair and shoved him to the ground. Then, the officer wrapped his arm around the man's neck while other officers held his limbs down.
These two instances are among 132 listed in the DOJ report, in which they concluded that unnecessarily violent arrests like these are fairly standard for Phoenix PD. Slightly less standard, but not entirely rare, are occurrences where lethal force is used. According to the DOJ, Phoenix has one of the highest rates of police-involved fatal shootings in the country, and while city officials have long blamed this on Arizona's loose gun ownership laws, the DOJ said that's not an excuse: "Possession of a weapon without threatening behavior does not justify lethal force."
In one instance, police were called to de-escalate a suicide attempt before shooting the woman 10 times after noticing she had a gun. The woman died after the six officers failed to give her any medical attention for nine minutes after the shooting.
"Officers violate the Constitution when they fire their weapons at people who present no immediate threat of harm, and they continue to shoot at people after they are no longer a threat," the DOJ said.
In another situation, officers noticed a man throwing rocks at their car as they passed. The officers originally called dispatch to request that an officer with "less-lethal" weapons be sent out to deal with the situation. However, the original officers returned to the scene, stopped within “throwing distance” and drew their guns, demanding the man put down the rock he was holding. When he began to throw another rock, the officers shot him four times, killing him.
The DOJ also concluded that Phoenix PD endangers lives in ways that have nothing to do with guns. According to the DOJ, "PhxPD officers routinely keep handcuffed people face down and apply pressure to their head, back, and neck."
Similarly, most Phoenix PD officers misuse leg restraints in a way that leaves arrestees face down on their stomach even while being transported in a police vehicle. The DOJ reported that several people died in Phoenix jails after being incorrectly restrained.
Although these practices can cause deadly asphyxiation — officers have been advised not to use them — they've remained standard in the Phoenix PD, "even when the person is plainly in distress or says they cannot breathe," the DOJ said.
In one case, the DOJ reported, officers "pressed a deaf man's neck and head down for over 20 minutes," even continuing as his "breathing shallowed" and he "began to cry, cough, and eventually scream." The officers had been informed before arrival that the man was deaf, but they repeatedly shouted at him.
Similarly, on Aug. 19, nearly two months after the DOJ released their report, bodycam footage captured Phoenix PD officers angrily shouting orders at a 34-year-old deaf man, Tyron McAlpin. On Oct. 16, CNN reported the footage of officers tackling, punching and tasing him almost immediately without warning.
After the altercation, McAlpin was charged with assault, with officers claiming he took a "fighting stance" as they approached him. The charges have since been dropped, and the officers have been placed on paid leave.
'Less lethal' practices
After Phoenix had a nationwide high of 44 police shootings in 2018, the police department invested heavily in "less-lethal" projectile weapons "designed to stop, but not kill, a person who presents a threat," according to the DOJ.
Hoping it would prevent deaths, Phoenix PD heavily incentivized its officers to use these, even taking guns away from officers who didn't use them enough. The result, according to the DOJ, is a system where lethal weapons are still being used where less-lethal weapons should be, and less-lethal weapons are being used in unnecessary situations.
One man, wanted for two open felony warrants related to probation violations, was standing outside a storage unit when officers surrounded him. Within 20 seconds, the man, who was unarmed, was tased and pelted with several rounds of foam bullets and over 20 PepperBalls.
The report added that these weapons were also used against peaceful protesters in 2020, usually without warning, and often against people trying to leave the scene. On one occasion, Phoenix PD boxed in a group of protesters and pelted them with less-lethal weapons. According to the report, the sergeant bragged, "We just lit 'em up" and laughed as he said, "It was the perfect pitch ‘cause they can’t go anywhere."
Phoenix police officers' use of Tasers is particularly excessive. According to the DOJ, "PhxPD officers fire Tasers at people with little or no warning and when people pose no threat. Officers rarely attempt de-escalation before firing a Taser. Officers fire Tasers at people with their hands up, after they surrender, or when they are restrained."
The DOJ report suggested that authority within Phoenix PD may encourage this behavior, citing one instance where a sergeant responded to a mental health crisis by spraying the man with pepper spray for seven seconds and then tasing him, all within minutes of arriving.
Discriminatory practices
In other cases, reasons for unlawful treatment have been discriminatory. "Though Hispanic and white people make up roughly even shares of the Phoenix population, PhxPD cites or arrests Hispanic people for traffic-equipment related offenses at three times the rate of white people," the DOJ said.
"PhxPD cites or arrests Hispanic people 12 times as often as white people for improper tinting of windows, seven times as often for improper license plate lights, and more than eight times as often for squealing tires," it added. On a per capita basis, Black people are also roughly three times more likely than white people to be cited or arrested on these kinds of charges.
"When I see a police officer and I'm driving, I get nervous, I get scared and I'm worried that they're gonna try and find anything to pull me over for," said V Sham, a senior studying construction management and technology. "And once they pull me over, it's their game. It doesn't matter if I'm completely in compliance. Just for being Black, I'm at risk."
Jessica Katzenstein, an assistant professor at ASU's School of Social Transformation, said that although racism in policing has always existed, it has increased since the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
"The biggest thing that stands out is a structural issue that exceeds policing and is part of a larger backlash to the George Floyd protests," Katzenstein said. "And that's this idea that Black Americans have somehow gotten too much attention in policing. ... And now it's gone too far.
"Some officers have suggested or said relatively directly that they feel like reform diversity programs that originated in Chicago or the East Coast don't really fit here because this area has a much lower Black population."
However, Sham rejected this line of thinking. "I lived in Arizona my whole life and can say I’ve never had a great interaction with any police officer ever," they said.
"On the other hand, there's also been some complaints around the invisibilization of Latinx and Native issues," Katzenstein said.
While police departments have taken some measures to prevent anti-Black racism in recent years, other minorities have been largely left out of the equation. As a result, Katzenstein describes a culture within Phoenix PD where anti-Black racism is baked into the system, and racism against Latin and Indigenous Americans is also prevalent.
People of color face police injustice at a disproportionate rate, but according to Sham, no one is safe. "They always start with minorities and then slowly get further and further up the totem pole," Sham said. "And we're now at this point where cops can get away with anything."
One of Phoenix PD's most disproportionately-abused targets, however, is the city's homeless community. Despite making up less than 1% of Phoenix residents, homeless people account for 37% of all arrests made by Phoenix PD.
"PhxPD stops, detains, and arrests people who are homeless without reasonable suspicion that they are engaged in criminal activity,” the DOJ said. “The City and PhxPD seize and destroy property belonging to people who are homeless without providing adequate notice or opportunity to collect their belongings."
In 2023, the City of Phoenix conducted some of its largest clean-ups in "The Zone," a homeless encampment with hundreds of people. During "clean-ups," unhoused people's property is seized and destroyed by police.
"For some homeless residents, the first notice they received was the sunrise announcement by PhxPD officers, just before the clean-ups began," the DOJ said. "People who failed to move their property sometimes lost everything."
ASU PD
ASU has its own police department, which holds jurisdiction over all four of the school's campuses and much of the surrounding areas.
"The ASU Police Department includes many experienced officers who transferred from other law enforcement agencies in the valley, and throughout the U.S.," ASU Spokesperson Jerry Gonzalez wrote in an email. "We have former officers from New York City, San Francisco, El Paso and many local cities...Mesa, Glendale, Paradise Valley, Peoria, Maricopa, etc."
Many officers working for ASU PD are veterans of Phoenix PD. Consequently, they succumb to many of the same shortfalls.
Sham described their experience as a Black student living on campus: "Every time I had to walk back from (the parking lot) to my dorm, I was worried about getting stopped by the police. I was stopped at least three separate times."
One prevalent, recent example involving ASU PD is the pro-Palestine solidarity encampment that took place on April 26 outside Old Main. ASU PD — led by ASU Police Chief and former Mesa PD officer Michael Thompson — arrested three protesters. All three cases were dropped by Judge William Cawthorn, who ruled there was no probable cause for the arrests.
READ MORE: Pro-Palestine protestors set up tents outside of Old Main, three arrests made
Late that night, officers also arrested almost 70 additional protesters and dismantled the encampment. Thompson also admitted to slashing tents with knives, during which he was out of uniform, and other officers were seen forcibly removing the hijabs off several Muslim women. On Oct. 30, the Department of Justice announced that they would be opening an investigation into ASU PD over this violation.
READ MORE: Breaking: DOJ investigating ASU Police for potential civil rights violations
According to protest organizers, one protester fainted from a POTS episode (a chronic blood circulation disorder), and instead of letting medics help her, officers arrested the protester and the medics.
After his handling of the protest, ASU placed Thompson on administrative leave, and he retired three months later. On July 4, the Iranian government placed sanctions on Thompson and 10 other police leaders for what they called "a flagrant violation of human rights."
READ MORE: Iran imposes sanctions on ASU Police Department Chief
Root causes
"The pattern of constitutional violations we describe above is due, in part, to poor accountability, policies, training, and supervision at PhxPD," the DOJ said. Officer training "has explicitly encouraged officers to use force when there is no legal justification to do so."
The DOJ also said that Phoenix PD lacks avenues to hold officers accountable, and complaints filed are largely ignored by supervisors. Investigations into officer misconduct are almost always biased and often omit key information. When an officer does receive a misconduct violation, the discipline is usually extremely lenient, which often leads to the officer becoming a repeat offender.
"The root causes are linked to the history of policing as an instrument of protecting the social status quo," Katzenstein said. "One could start by talking about the founding of U.S. policing as an institution linked to slave patrols in the south and white supremacist militias, its use as an instrument of labor repression in the north, its entanglements with Indigenous dispossession."
"You can become a police officer in less than a year, which you shouldn't be able to," Sham said. "I think they're given too much of a grace on what they are and aren't allowed to do and what mistakes they make. I feel like if you have to be put on a Brady List, you should be fired."
The Brady List is a list of officers with an established history of misconduct. Over 13% of all Phoenix police officers are on the list.
Regardless of the causes of the issues within Phoenix PD, the lack of accountability from officers is widespread. Since the DOJ published its findings, 56% of Phoenix officers have said they would consider quitting unless the City of Phoenix fights DOJ oversight.
"ASU students should care about this because it affects them," Sham said. "It's not like we live on this ivory tower disconnected from the rest of the world and we're not dealing with this. People on campus have to deal with these issues."
Edited by Savannah Dagupion, Leah Mesquita and Audrey Eagerton.
This story is part of The Horror Issue, which was released on November 1, 2024. See the entire publication here.
Editor's note: This article was updated from the print version to omit V Sham's full last name for privacy reasons. It was also updated to include the DOJ's investigation into ASU PD.
Reach the reporter at evansilverbergrep@gmail.com and follow @evansotherstuff on Instagram.
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