Department of Justice says Phoenix police engage in racial discrimination

The U.S. Department of Justice says race is a factor when Phoenix police enforce traffic laws.

“He jumped out of the car like I was some murderer,” said a woman to a Phoenix police lieutenant from inside of a holding cell in 2019. “He looked at me, and in my opinion, he saw a Black face, a Black woman and he exerted his badge. His capacity. Overexerted his capacity.”

The woman told the lieutenant she had already parked near 15th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, and was walking toward a movie theater, when she was suddenly confronted by an officer over an alleged driving violation, according to a recording of the conversation released by the city.

“But he didn’t need to put his hands on me. He could have said, ‘I am stopping you for a traffic stop,’" she said.

The lieutenant focused on the woman not having provided identification to the officer when asked.

The woman said at that point, police had her ID in their possession. She only wanted to talk with a supervisor first because the officer made her feel unsafe.

Phoenix police investigated the incident and found what happened was within policy.

The DOJ says Phoenix police violate the Civil Rights Act and other federal law by racially discriminating against Black, Hispanic and Native American people when enforcing traffic, drug and alcohol laws, plus quality-of-life offenses, such as trespassing.

The DOJ says that Phoenix police are aloof to allegations made over years that officers are biased.

City officials have said they don’t know of any credible evidence of discrimination, but paid for a study of police data to check it out.

City officials also told the DOJ that racially biased policing is forbidden and all officers must take implicit bias training.

“Officers have a lot of discretion here (as) to whether or not they’re going to give you a warning, and let you go. Or actually full-on arrest you and take you down to the station and book you,” said Benjamin Taylor, a civil rights attorney.

Federal officials reported that they found no evidence that Phoenix police do self-assessment to catch patterns that may be discriminatory.

“They need to look in the mirror. They need to really reevaluate themselves, and listen to the community. And actually listen to what people are saying,” said Taylor, who wants federal oversight of Phoenix police. “A lot of these cities are signing consent decrees because it shows the community that, ‘We’re taking this serious.'"

The wheels of change would slow if a judge or monitor keeps tabs on the Phoenix Police Department, said Interim Police Chief Michael Sullivan, who calls himself a reformer.

Matthew Casey/KJZZ

“I'm very concerned with those (racial discrimination) findings," Sullivan said.

But it is unclear to Sullivan how federal officials determined that there is discriminatory policing happening in Phoenix.

“That’s why we asked the Department of Justice if we could have the underlying methodologies,” said Sullivan.

He said knowing the techniques used by the DOJ means he can take action on a very complicated issue.

Discriminatory policing was a finding by the DOJ against police in Baltimore, where Sullivan worked before taking the job in Phoenix in 2022.

“I want to get to root causes and understand why and how. And there's a lot of different reasons why and how. But we definitely need to build trust with every community in this department and address this,” said Sullivan.

In their report, the DOJ focuses on times when Phoenix police chose to stop, ticket or arrest people.

The DOJ found disparities based on race and national origin.

So then investigators did two studies — one to see if Phoenix police selectively enforce laws during traffic stops, and another to analyze how officers treat different people suspected of the same offense.

The DOJ says overwhelming statistical evidence shows that discrimination is the reason why.

“I don't know how anyone can walk away from that report not being disgusted,” said Brendan Mahoney, who was once head of the city’s Human Relations Commission. “The significance of that is it is the only body in the city of Phoenix which is dedicated toward investigating discrimination.”

After an incident where an officer tackled a Black City Council member trying to help a neighbor whose house was on fire, Mahoney said police were given dozens of recommendations for reform.

When his commission sought an update on implementation after more high-profile incidents, police leadership showed up months later with a dog and pony show, according to Mahoney.

“And now we look at the report and see just how bad it really is, and what's been going on. And they've just been hiding it the entire time. I don't know how to come to any other conclusion that they lied to us and tried to obstruct us from finding out what really was going on,” said Mahoney.

In a document sent to the DOJ in January detailing self-imposed reforms, Phoenix said it had hired a UC Berkeley professor to crunch internal data and look for evidence of police discrimination.

Sullivan said the work could be complete in the coming months.