Phoenix police are delaying the launch date for new rules on when officers can resort to violence or use physical force on suspects until Feb. 18.
The policy has been under construction for nearly the entire tenure of the interim police chief who took over the agency in 2022.
In mid-January, Phoenix police said they expected the new use-of-force policy to go live last Friday.
Now a spokesperson says another two weeks are needed so staff can learn minor changes made based on feedback from the original training.
The revision process launched shortly after Chief Michael Sullivan took over the department. He has called certain changes foundational, such as raising the standard for when officers can fire their gun, and organizing uses of force into categories based on seriousness.
Federal civil rights investigators said in June that Phoenix police are excessively violent and have a force-first culture.
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Mayes said Thursday that lawmakers made a mistake in 2021 when they revamped the civil forfeiture law that provided what some had said was an easy — and potentially unethical — source of money for police and prosecutors. -
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller overstepped his authority by entering a partnership with federal immigration authorities, a Maricopa County Superior Court Judge ruled Friday. -
The Phoenix police chief has fired a sergeant over his behavior at an anti-ICE student protest in Chandler in January. -
In the wake of a multibillion-dollar scheme involving sober living homes, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Thursday that her office’s crackdown on Medicaid fraud is working. -
The city of Phoenix has launched a multilingual platform where residents can report concerns or incidents related to federal law enforcement activity within the city. The Federal Enforcement Complaint Reporting Portal is available at the Community Transparency Initiative webpage.
