Matthew Casey
Senior Field CorrespondentMatthew Casey has won Edward R. Murrow awards for hard news and sports reporting since he joined KJZZ in 2015.
Casey helped open two local bureaus. He covered immigration for the Fronteras Desk during the Trump administration. Casey reported, wrote and produced the podcast "Empty Seats" about the pandemic’s effect on the professional sports industry in metro Phoenix.
Before public radio, he worked for newspapers, digital media and at a television station. “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” Casey and a buddy rode a bus to Mexico City to cover Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s first presidential bid.
Casey is a proud Spanish speaker and grateful to the immigrants who taught him while working in restaurants. When he’s not reporting for KJZZ, Casey enjoys swimming laps, going to University of Arizona football games and exploring Cochise County.
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The research director of a local nonpartisan think tank says it did a free economic analysis of a ballot proposal to raise the minimum wage for certain hospitality workers in Glendale. The review by the Grand Canyon Institute comes as the city’s mayor reminds voters that Proposition 499 wasn’t his idea or the City Council’s. -
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office says it has filed trespassing charges against 68 pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested months ago on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus. A statement from the top prosecutor says university policy bans encampments on a lawn near Old Main where the demonstrators defied police orders to leave. -
A former Phoenix police officer who was fired by the department’s chief in April is still waiting to find out if he’ll get his job back. Requests by Jesse Johnson have twice been denied by the city’s Civil Service Board, but his appeal is still alive. -
The Phoenix City Council has appointed nine people to a civilian review board that will keep tabs on work done by the city’s police accountability office. -
The state Court of Appeals has voided a move by the Arizona Department of Transportation to suspend the driver's license of a man found with the active ingredient for marijuana in his blood. The case stems from a late-night traffic stop in Sedona in which the driver was suspected of an alcohol-related DUI, but not prosecuted. -
The Arizona Auditor General says the state Department of Housing wired $2 million to fraudsters because state officials did not have a policy to prevent scams. The gaffe is part of a new report saying the Housing Department can’t evaluate its own work on affordable housing despite a spending commitment of more than a billion dollars. -
Years of making incorrect property classifications led to a class-action judgment that means Maricopa County owes roughly $333 million in return payments to taxpayers. The Maricopa County Community College District says in a notice of claim that its account is being unjustly and unlawfully raided by the county treasurer to help pay the bill. -
Wednesday is scheduled to be the first day on campus for the new University of Arizona president. -
The Phoenix Police Department wants your feedback on a draft of a new policy for how officers are to handle protests that are planned or spontaneous. The request comes after the U.S. Justice Department said Phoenix police retaliate against people exercising the right to free speech with violence and bogus allegations. -
Three-and-a-half months have passed since federal investigators said the city of Phoenix and its Police Department have a pattern of violating civil rights. Friday is the first meeting between city officials and the U.S. Justice Department since blistering findings were delivered.
