DOJ probe into Phoenix police: What led to the investigation
That a just-released U.S. Justice Department report focuses on accusations of systematic discrimination, civil rights abuses and excessive violence at the Phoenix Police Department is not a surprise.
The report was issued Thursday after an almost three-year federal investigation prompted by a string of heavily reported incidents in the years before the probe was launched.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division announced the federal probe at a news conference in 2021.
They declared that federal officials would investigate allegations of excessive use of force by Phoenix officers, retaliation against protesters, discriminatory policing practices and the department's response to people who have disabilities or are experiencing homelessness.
Clarke said the Department of Justice reviewed various court filings, media reports and citizen complaints before launching the federal investigation.
"Protecting the rule of law demands that those who enforce our laws also abide by them," Clarke said at the time. "Ensuring that law enforcement acts in a lawful and accountable manner is a priority for the Civil Rights Division."
Here's what to know about the history behind the investigation.
Before the investigation: A string of controversial killings
Federal scrutiny started after the Phoenix Police Department was involved in a string of controversies that drew criticism from activists and city officials.
One such incident occurred in May 2020 when officers responding to a noise complaint at an apartment complex fired gunshots at a man after mere seconds of interacting with him.
Officer Jeff Cooke fatally shot Ryan Whitaker, 40, after Whitaker opened the door to his Ahwatukee Foothills apartment, not knowing police were on the other side of his door. Police knocked, saw him holding a gun and reflexively shot at him.
DOJ investigation updates: Phoenix police systematically used illegal excessive force. City pushes back
Steven Whitaker, Ryan's brother, previously told The Arizona Republic he “100%” believes the Phoenix Police Department has systemic issues and he hopes that the Department of Justice investigation “peels back the onion.”
“They (Phoenix police) preach transparency, they preach openness and all that, but they don’t actually practice what they preach, so hopefully the DOJ coming in forces that,” he said.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office ultimately cleared Cooke of criminal wrongdoing.
Less than two months after Whitaker was killed, on July 3, 2020, officers fired 16 times at James "Jay" Porter Garcia, who was sitting in a friend’s car outside his house in the Maryvale community.
Police responded to the house looking for a stabbing suspect when they found Garcia asleep in the car. After being awakened by the two officers, he grabbed his gun and pointed it downward. Thirteen minutes later, they fatally shot him. Records showed that Garcia was not the suspect police were seeking.
In another case, Muslim Advocates, a national organization in Washington, D.C., said it requested an investigation from the DOJ after the 2017 in-custody death of Muhammad Muhaymin Jr.
The 43-year-old's death has been called Phoenix's own "I can't breathe" case after at least four officers got on top of Muhaymin and held him down, some with their knees on his neck and head.
"I can't breathe," Muhaymin could be heard saying several times in police body camera footage. He died unarmed and lying in a pool of his own vomit.
George Floyd, the man killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, was held in similar fashion.
Handling of protesters draws attention
Phoenix's controversies aren’t limited to fatalities.
In 2020, many people across Arizona and the country participated in demonstrations against police use of force and unfair treatment of people of color. Phoenix police arrested hundreds, including community activists, with court records showing officers surveilled and chronicled protesters' actions.
Matters came to a head when Phoenix police arrested 17 adults at an October 2020 protest and a Maricopa County prosecutor brought gang-related charges against all of them.
The case drew national scrutiny from people alleging the case was weak and designed to silence protesters. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office later acknowledged the case was "deeply flawed” and permanently dropped all charges.
April Sponsel, the prosecutor who brought the gang-related charges against the protesters, was placed on administrative leave and later fired in 2022. A disciplinary panel found Sponsel had violated multiple ethical conduct rules and suspended her law license for two years. The County Attorney’s Office also disbanded the unit responsible for charging in cases involving crimes against first responders such as police officers and firefighters.
Another protest led to more legal scrutiny for the Phoenix police. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the department for its use of tear gas and rubber bullets during a Trump rally in 2017 in downtown Phoenix, claiming officers violated the rights of people who were protesting outside.
Phoenix police also drew scrutiny upon the discovery of a challenge coin that appeared to mock a protester injured during a demonstration against then-President Donald Trump at a rally in downtown Phoenix in 2017. Later, the law firm Ballard Spahr reported a phrase on the coin closely resembled a neo-Nazi phrase, without providing evidence of officers belonging to such groups.
Allegations of discriminatory policing practices
Some residents and advocacy groups have condemned the Phoenix City Council's public pushback against the DOJ's investigation into the Police Department.
A mother whose two sons were killed by the police said she believes city officials would rather spend money on protecting the institution than the public. Another resident said the city only meaningfully engaged the community after the feds showed up.
Advocacy groups have asserted that residents' complaints have fallen on deaf ears for years and that city officials have sided with the police unions over those victimized by the police.
The Phoenix police's report about its reform efforts underway are "attempts to discredit the DOJ findings before they come out," said Ben Laughlin of Poder in Action, a nonprofit that seeks to "dismantle systems of oppression."
Phoenix established the Office of Accountability and Transparency in May 2021 to provide a degree of civilian oversight and offer recommendations on how the Police Department could change.
Such recommendations include explaining why an officer's actions were or were not appropriate on the conclusion of the internal investigation, which the department agreed to in May 2024. However, the Police Department doesn't always agree with the office's recommendations.
One example is the discipline of Officer Caleb Zimmerman, who arrested Wall Street Journal reporter Dion Rabouin.
The Office of Accountability and Transparency determined that the department disciplined Zimmerman under the wrong policy, leading to a less severe punishment, and that Zimmerman completed two training courses in two hours when the courses should have taken six.
The department, in response, said that Zimmerman was disciplined under the correct policy and that the chief has the final say on what the discipline should be, even if it falls outside of what is laid out in the police manual.
And while Phoenix recently created its first Civilian Review Board to accompany the police oversight office, many of the policy's earliest architects slammed an ordinance changing the Office of Accountability and Transparency's investigative powers to align with state law signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey in 2022 that restricts local police oversight bodies from investigating law enforcement.
The board would be tasked with reviewing and determining whether the Phoenix Police Department's investigations dealing with use-of-force incidents and claims against officers were completed thoroughly and fairly but wouldn't have a role in the department's internal investigations or in disciplining officers.
The most it could do is recommend changes on how the department should conduct future investigations and weigh in on the appropriateness of how officers were disciplined.
How the department responds to people who have disabilities
It’s unclear if a certain incident sparked the Justice Department to include this in its investigation. Generally, police departments here and elsewhere are attempting to improve how they interact with people with autism and other disabilities.
All Phoenix police officers receive training on developmental disabilities, including autism, during their training at the Phoenix Police Regional Academy, a police spokesperson told The Arizona Republic last year.
The department's more than 525 Crisis Intervention Team-certified officers receive an hour of training specifically geared toward autism during their 40 hours of required training, which also includes sections on stigma, de-escalation, resources for behavioral health crises and information on other disorders and disabilities.
At the time, the spokesperson said additional training specific to autism was being developed for all officers.
This year, the city is expanding a program that will divert some 911 calls involving mental and behavioral health crises away from police to clinicians and caseworkers working under the Fire Department.
Mayor Kate Gallego said the $15 million expansion of the Community Action Program is meant to improve the interactions during an emergency.
“Throughout the nation, and here in Phoenix, a large and increasing percentage of calls are from people who need help and have no idea where to get it, so they call for police," Gallego said when the program expansion was announced.
"Now, instead of an armed officer, residents will be able to get assistance from a professional who is armed with information and training. We can connect people to the services they need while reducing negative interactions and sometimes deadly consequences."
Treatment of those experiencing homelessness
Before a major encampment was removed near downtown, some people experiencing homelessness accused Phoenix officers of throwing away their tents. They said they believe Phoenix police officers and sanitation workers threw away personal belongings, including clothes and identification documents, in common cleanup practices.
During cleanups near the Human Services Campus, the city deployed street sweepers and forced people living on the streets to move their belongings to safe zones until the area was treated. But if items weren't moved, officers and other city workers could throw them in a dump truck.
The DOJ investigation into the Phoenix Police Department was to include a review of whether officers violated the civil rights of people experiencing homelessness when they seized and disposed of their belongings during sweeps of encampments.
During the investigation: Did Phoenix cooperate? Will Phoenix fight the DOJ over the findings?
The Phoenix Police Department released a video in August 2023 updating the status of the civil rights probe.
The video explained that the department turned over tens of thousands of documents and thousands of hours of video, though the department and the DOJ disagreed on how to share the sensitive documents securely.
In the video, interim police Chief Michael Sullivan said the investigation slowed for "a number of months" because the DOJ rejected some of the department's proposed solutions for sharing information. An agreement was reached in late 2021.
In the style of a TV news segment, the department's video explained that police had released more than 20,000 body camera videos and shared about 80,000 documents. DOJ investigators had participated in more than 200 ride-alongs and interviewed more than 100 city employees.
"We need to be a self-assessing, self-correcting agency, and that's not just something that we say," Sullivan said. "We are, and always will, look for ways to improve."
In January, Phoenix sent the Department of Justice a letter requesting that the pattern or practice investigation into the Phoenix Police Department end with a technical assistance letter, meaning the city is seeking to avoid direct federal oversight.
At one recent public meeting, Councilmember Jim Waring said, "When the Secretary of Defense asked Ulysses Grant, 'What's your plan for the Civil War?' he said, 'I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer.'" Waring added: "I think that would be good advice for this council."
Gallego has been a steadfast supporter of the Phoenix Police Department and joined Councilmembers Ann O'Brien, Jim Waring, Debra Stark and Kevin Robinson last year in refusing to sign a preemptive document called a "statement of intent" or "agreement in principle" that municipalities sometimes sign to avoid litigation.
City leaders have balked at the idea of negotiating with the federal government on a consent decree rather than go to trial where the city could risk a court order that's non-negotiable.
The city has said in recent public town hall presentations that it could not point to any specific origin of the DOJ probe and didn't understand why it was needed.
Republic reporter Miguel Torres, former reporter Jessica Boehm and other staff reporters contributed to this article.
Reach the reporter Perry Vandell at 602-444-2474 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @PerryVandell.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: History of DOJ probe into the Phoenix Police Department