Friday, June 14, 2024

US finds Phoenix Police Dept violates civil rights of city residents

A BUSHEL OF BAD APPLES

Thu, June 13, 2024

 Police block protesters during a visit by U.S, President Donald Trump to the Dream City Church in Phoenix

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday took aim at the Phoenix Police Department, accusing its officers of systemically violating peoples' civil rights and using excessive and at times "unjustified deadly force" against city residents.

In a new investigative report, the Justice Department Civil Rights Division said it has reasonable cause to believe that police in Phoenix routinely discriminate against Black, Hispanic and Native Americans, and unlawfully detain homeless people and dispose of their belongings.

The report also found that the police frequently violate people's protected free speech, discriminate against people with behavioral disabilities and use aggressive tactics with children that could have a "lasting impact" on their wellbeing.

In a letter to Justice Department officials, Phoenix city attorney Julie Kriegh said that the city and its police department today are "materially different than the department" that was investigated.

"The Phoenix City Council has consistently, through meaningful dialogue with community members, invested in substantial public expenditures and proposed and approved significant projects," she wrote, citing the use of body-worn cameras and initiatives addressing homelessness and mental health.

The department's findings end a nearly three-year-long investigation, first announced in August 2021, that examined whether the Phoenix Police Department engaged in a "pattern or practice" of civil rights abuses.

"In the years leading up to our investigation, PhxPD officers shot and killed people at one of the highest rates in the country," the report found.

"PhxPD relies on dangerous tactics that lead to force that is unnecessary and unreasonable. PhxPD has taught officers a misguided notion of de-escalation. 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 report said.

The report also found that police frequently retaliated against their own critics.

In one example, police created a so-called "challenge coin" that depicted the image of a protester whom an officer had shot in the groin.

The coin had a star over the image of the man's groin with the words: “Good night, left nut.”

On the back, the coin read, “Making America Great Again – One Nut at a Time.”

"Police officers abused their power to silence people asserting their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly," said Kristen Clarke, the head of the department's Civil Rights Division, during a virtual press conference.

The Justice Department's findings could possibly be met with some resistance by Phoenix city officials, who have declined prior requests by the department to enter into a court-monitored consent decree.

Some of the Justice Department's other high-profile civil rights investigations into police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville were spurred by police killings of unarmed Black citizens. The probe into Phoenix, by contrast, was not prompted by any single incident.

However, the report noted that in the years leading up to the investigation, Phoenix Police shot and killed people at one of the highest rates in the nation.

Thursday's report by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was delivered to Phoenix without any agreement between the parties on how to implement policing reforms.

In a January 2024 letter to Justice Department officials, the city's outside counsel Michael Bromwich accused the department of a "lack of transparency" and failing to share any of the tentative conclusions from the investigation.

He added that the city was already implementing policing reforms and asked the Justice Department to consider an alternative approach to a consent decree.

Clarke on Thursday called the department's findings "severe."

She said the department is prepared to sit down with the city to identify a "mutually beneficial path" toward reform.

"This is one instance where we can't count on the police to police themselves," she said.

Phoenix City Manager Jeff Barton, in a message to employees, said the city was taking the findings seriously and will review the report "with an open mind."

"Self-reflection is an important step in continuous improvement," he wrote.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Josie Kao)


Phoenix police violated the rights of homeless residents and minority communities, scathing DOJ report finds

Hannah Rabinowitz and Devan Cole, CNN
Thu, June 13, 2024 


The Phoenix Police Department has for years violated the constitutional rights of residents experiencing homelessness and regularly discriminated against minority communities, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday.

Justice Department investigators found that Phoenix police targets “people experiencing homelessness, retaliates against people who criticize the police, and disproportionately uses force against people with behavioral health disabilities.”

The report also found that officers disproportionately enforce laws more severely against Black, Hispanic, and Native American people than against White people engaged in the same behaviors, even though “the city still claims it is ‘unaware of any credible evidence of discriminatory policing.’”

The blistering report marks the end of a nearly three-year investigation into the police department that began in the wake of several high-profile incidents, including the 2020 fatal police shooting of a man in a parked car.

This investigation was the first time that a department’s so-called pattern and practice investigation focused on officers’ conduct toward people experiencing homelessness – a clear warning for cities around the country where police sweeps of homeless communities have become a common response to the growth of tent cities in public spaces.

DOJ investigators found that “in the early mornings, officers cite or arrest homeless people for conduct that is plainly not a crime, such as sitting or lying down on public property or for ‘trespassing’ on private property when they are on a public sidewalk.”

Officers also repeatedly seized and destroyed the property of people experiencing homelessness under the guise of the city’s “clean-up operations,” according to the report.

“A person’s constitutional rights do not diminish when they lack shelter,” the report concludes.

Kristen Clarke, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told reporters on Thursday that “homelessness is a challenge in Phoenix and in many cities across the country.”

“Over-policing of the homeless has become a central pillar of the (Phoenix) police department’s enforcement strategy,” she added. “The criminalization of homelessness has no place in our society today.”

How US cities have responded to a surge in unhoused residents has become a major flashpoint in recent years, prompting people experiencing homelessness and their advocates to push for greater accountability among local officials.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming days in a case challenging an Oregon city ticketing its unhoused residents. The justices have been asked to consider whether the practice violates the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.

The DOJ report acknowledges that the Phoenix Police Department has instituted several changes to address unconstitutional policing since the beginning of the federal investigation.

CNN is reaching out to the police department for comment.
DOJ report finds police used excessive force

The Phoenix Police Department frequently and inappropriately used deadly force, the report found, and has one of the highest rates of fatal shootings in the country per year.

Among the causes of Phoenix officers’ use of excessive force is that officers are taught a “misguided notion of de-escalation,” the report says.

“Rather than teaching that de-escalation strategies are designed to eliminate or reduce the need to use force, (the Phoenix Police Department) has misappropriated the concept and teaches officers that all force – even deadly force – is de-escalation,” the report reads.

Officers also delayed rendering aid to people whom they have shot, the report found, or continued to use force against those who were already incapacitated – sometimes even unconscious – because of gunfire.

In one example highlighted by the Justice Department, officers shot an individual in the chest who had pointed a handgun at police. A supervisor at the scene instructed officers to use a non-lethal weapon to give “a couple pops before we approach” the man, who had fallen to the ground, and then said that there was “no rush” in administering CPR. The man was later pronounced dead.

In other examples, officers were quick to physical violence or arrests when they felt that people were being disrespectful or criticizing the police.

Police officers have also used excessive force against protesters to deter First Amendment-protected speech, the report found, including by firing less-than-lethal weapons indiscriminately and without legal justification. Officers have used arrests to deter people from protesting, used criminal charges that were “far more serious than the evidence supported,” and have “sought to justify serious charges with false evidence.”

The police department’s “recent commitment to protecting free speech is important, but it would be premature to claim any new efforts are working,” the report adds.
Police target minority communities, report finds

The sprawling report also found that the Phoenix Police Department disproportionately polices the city’s minority communities, including through excessive tickets and arrests for less serious offenses.

The DOJ probe found that the department “cites and arrests Black, Hispanic, and Native American people for low-level traffic, drug, alcohol, and quality-of-life offenses at rates disproportionate to their shares of the population.”

The offenses cover a range of misconduct, according to the report, which said as an example that the department arrested “cyclists for biking on the wrong side of the road almost eight times more in predominantly non-white neighborhoods, compared with white neighborhoods.”

DOJ also said that the Phoenix Police Department lacked the ability to “adequately investigate” complaints from community members that an office acted with “overt bias.” Many complaints lodged against officers were classified by investigators at the department as “officer ‘rudeness,’” according to the report.

“In the vast majority of cases, (the police department) simply dismisses complaints of discriminatory policing absent evidence that an officer made an overtly racist statement or admitted to engaging in racist profiling,” the report found. “Since people are unlikely to admit to such things, (the department’s) practice of requiring this evidence means that these complaints will necessarily be given short shrift.”

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