The Phoenix Police Department had several chiefs while under federal investigation.
First was Jeri Williams. Then came Michael Sullivan, and now Dennis Orender, who is acting chief while the city reboots a national search for a permanent boss.
Under each of them, Darrell Kriplean has led the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA), a powerful labor union representing most of the rank and file.
“They’re excited to not have that black cloud just looming over them,” Kriplean said.
At the center of the black cloud was a nearly year old question: What comes next?
The Justice Department now has an answer: The investigation is over. The 126-page document of findings is being retracted.
Kriplean said he heard a U.S. assistant attorney general say on a conference call that she’s not confident the findings report contains facts.
“I’m excited. I think it’s a clear vindication for our city and our department,” Kriplean said.
The Justice Department did not reply to KJZZ’s request for comment following its Wednesday announcement.
Reform efforts to continue
Federal investigators spent years probing the city of Phoenix and its police department before delivering blistering findings of civil rights abuses last June.
Now, the Justice Department is clawing those findings back.
City officials said sweeping reform efforts on police policy, training and accountability continue regardless of the decisions made in Washington, D.C.
Last month, an officer fired by former Chief Sullivan over a shooting cited in the report sued the city to get his job back. Kriplean declined to comment on the case because it is pending. He acknowledges police make mistakes because they’re human and do a hard job.
“And our department is full of good cops. Every once in a while we have that bad one and we will address that and help them find a new profession because we don’t want them here either,” said Kriplean.
The department with a chronic shortage of officers has for years been the target of reform efforts by Phoenix leaders.
A more strict policy on when police can use violence or physical force took effect in February.
The City Council is closely overseeing the implementation of changes as recommended by the now-retracted Justice Department report.
“Some of them do make sense and some of them probably are not (the) best policy. And we’re working with our elected officials and our management to find better ways to effect what the council wants,” Kriplean said.
Critics says erasing history erases trust
A longtime participant in Phoenix police reform efforts is civilian Jeremy Helfgot. He expected the Trump administration’s Justice Department to end the Biden era civil rights review of Phoenix.
“My real concern is that this is going to embolden the police unions and particularly PLEA to continue promoting and defending bad practices, dangerous practices, oftentimes deadly practices,” Helfgot said.
The report released last June details years of police violence; racial discrimination; and mistreatment of unhoused people, people with mental illness, protesters and children.
Helfgot said erasing history erases trust.
“Withdrawn or not, the facts laid out in the report are facts laid out in the report. And there is a mountain of evidence, much of it on camera,” Helfgot said.
Helfgot thinks highly of the acting police chief’s leadership, sense of accountability and grassroots ties to marginalized communities. But he said the Justice Department has signaled that police won’t be punished for bad or unlawful behavior.
“And I think it’s important that we send a message as the population of the city that that is not the case,” Helfgot said.
'The community wants change'
Some Arizona lawmakers at the local, state and federal level are celebrating the Justice Department’s retreat.
Among them are a congressman, the state Senate president, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Phoenix's vice mayor.
Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego’s communications director did not reply to a request for comment. While still in Congress’s lower chamber and shortly after the report came out, Gallego lobbied against federal oversight with a consent decree for the Phoenix police.
“It’s a very heartbreaking day for the community because the community wants change,” said Benjamin Taylor, a local civil rights attorney.
Lawyers who are pursuing civil rights cases against police often have to prove there was bad behavior by officers that happened before the incidents at the center of their cases.
Now, individual judges will decide whether to allow the Justice Department report on Phoenix police as evidence.
“Trying to take away a report is trying to silence the voices of people like Denice Garcia, whose son was shot and killed at the hands of Phoenix police,” Taylor said.
The retracted report cites that 2020 incident as an example of Phoenix police exposing themselves to avoidable situations and increasing the risk for officer-involved shootings.
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