The Phoenix Police Department is facing down a scathing report from the Department of Justice that found they use excessive force and violate people’s civil rights — especially people of color. But, even before the report was released, city leaders spoke out against the idea of federal oversight. They say they’re already making many of the reforms the government wants them to.
But, now that former president Donald Trump is about to enter a second term in the White House, there’s speculation that his DOJ won’t push the issue.
Andre Miller, senior pastor and founder of New Beginnings Christian Church in Mesa and vice president of Arizona State NAACP, says that would be a mistake.
Over the last several years, Miller has become an outspoken community advocate for police accountability. But, he told The Show, he’s not anti-police. In fact, one of his five sons is a police officer.
Miller joined The Show to discuss how he got involved in this cause, and what he thinks should happen next. And it’s today’s Deep Dive.
Full conversation
ANDRE MILLER: Many years ago I had an incident in the city of Chandler, and when I had this incident in the city of Chandler, I'm a pastor in the community, I'm kind of connected and I truly felt disrespected by a police officer and I was like, if this is happening in the community, something needs to be done and someone has to say something. And so I had the resources and the connections to make a call to the chief like, hey, this happened. And so that triggered me like, hey, something needs to be done in our community. And so that that's what got me going. Like, if I have a connection to the chief and can get something done, what about the people who don't? So they need a voice, and so I began to speak out.
LAUREN GILGER: So you felt like you almost had a responsibility to say something.
MILLER: Yes, absolutely.
GILGER: You've spoken out about a lot of incidents with local police over the years than since then, even sparked some investigations, made some changes. Tell us about the video that you gave to the former Mesa police chief and what happened in that situation.
MILLER: So that's the Robert Johnson incident, and in that particular situation, I'm known in the community. I actually at that time I lived in that building. And the management company, they knew me as a community advocate, as a pastor, and they reached out to me right away, Hey pastor, look at this video. I said, Well, let me record that. So I recorded the video, I sent it right to the chief and he said, there's a problem here.
And so that triggered a lot of questions and it triggered internal investigations with the Mesa Police Department because that particular squad where that happened, they were not supervised the way they should have been. The video was not reviewed for the use of force. Like none of the things that should have happened happened. And so that brought a lot of attention to some of the policies and procedures in the city of Mesa and the things that they were doing. And so they end up breaking up that particular squad. People got various forms of punishment or what have you, retraining. And I think that's good for the community.
GILGER: And there were, there were some policy changes that came out of that.
MILLER: Absolutely. And a lot of the policy changes, when you look at that, many times police unions or bargaining units or what have you, they are very resistant to change, especially if those changes are driven by the community. But I always explain that we're all the community. When you take off your uniform, you don't fly to Mars. I mean, you're still a part of the community, right?
And so one of the things that happened was the chief of police at the time put in a memorandum about how officers cannot strike somebody in the face just because they're talking or what have you. They have to actually show a sign of aggression. And that caused workmen compensation claims to go down because officers now are not breaking their hands on people's faces.
And my point was like, hey, a mouth is not a weapon. You're the consummate professional. So if somebody's calling you out your name, so what? You're getting paid as a police officer to be the professional. And my hope is that Even with that, you know, it shows people that that as a community, we can give input and it can actually be a good change for the agency as well.
GILGER: Yeah, let me ask you about the Phoenix Police Department, which has been hit pretty recently with a very sharp DOJ report saying that they use systemic discrimination, excessive force, particularly against minority communities. What's it been like for you from your point of view to watch that unfold? It's been bubbling up for a long time.
MILLER: Yeah, so it has been bubbling up for a very long time, you know, even when you look at the George Floyd protest and how they were targeting people as gangs and, you know, all these various, you know, fraudulent charges, if you will, for people who were just exercising their right to free speech. The Phoenix Police Department, it does need oversight, and I know a lot of people are resistant to that, but it's hard for you inside the home to know that your gutter is hanging off the house, right?
It's hard for you to sit in the living room and know that the grass is too high or what have you, and the people who are being affected by your agency are telling you there's a problem, you should want to listen and not just say, oh, we know how to police, or our training handles X, Y and Z because apparently it does not.
GILGER: So I wonder about that perspective, right? Because I wonder what you hear from the community itself, like you have become known as somebody who will make these connections, who will speak out on behalf of people who are feel like they are victims of police excessive use of force. Do people come to you now? Like, what do they say?
MILLER: People come to me all of the time, whether it's a message, an email, they reach out to the church. I mean, people contact me all the time and here's the caveat to that. When people contact me, I'm not just, OK, the police are wrong. I investigate, you know, like, let me go and request body cam footage, let me go and request a police report, let me see what this actually looks like, because if we're wrong from a community standpoint, I'll tell us that too. You know, I don't just say the police are wrong in every incident.
GILGER: And you have reason to believe this. You say you're not anti-police, you have five sons, one of them is a police officer.
MILLER: Yeah, five sons and one is a police officer. So I'm definitely not anti-police, right? I am pro proper policing and what that looks like for our whole community. Everybody should be treated fairly and equally, right? You'll see, you can, you can scour the internet right now and you can find incidents where a white person hadn't encountered the police and they didn't get thrown on the ground, they didn't get yelled at, cussed out, or whatever the case may be.
It could be the same situation for an African American or Hispanic person. And the call goes the total opposite way, right? These are things that we actually see in the community. Everything is not based off race, of course, but there are some people in these professions who have some animos because of race, and those are things that we need to make sure that we weed out of various agencies.
GILGER: What does your son, who's the police officer, think about your work in this?
MILLER: He tell me to go all gas, no brakes. He likes the fact that I hold agencies accountable and it makes it better for him, right? Police should not have an adversarial role when they come on the scene, right? I understand that they come into situations where they get to see the worst of humanity, I understand that.
But when you come in, you're not a guardian or a gladiator, you know, you're a peace officer, and that should be what you show up as a peace officer, a person who's trying to bring the peace, who's trying to de-escalate the situation. Make sure that you go home as the officer and other people actually go home as well, or go to go to prison or go to the jail or whatever they need to go, right? But at the end of the day,, a police encounter that's In a situation where it's avoidable, a person should not end up in a body bag.
GILGER: You've also served as the first police chaplain for the Apache Junction Police Department, and in that role, you are the, you're there for the officers, right? Tell us a little bit about that perspective.
MILLER: So I did that for a couple of years. I was the first appointed police chaplain for the Apache Junction Police Department, and most people were like, what do we need a chaplain for? What does that look like? And it's really like a pastor for the police and a bridge for the community.
So I would go on calls where, you know, someone had expired and we had to kind of navigate,, what that looks like for a family, but it also puts a different perspective on officers, right? They they're looking at somebody who's a part of the community who actually supports them, and me being the first Black person, it was kind of a, you know, I'm I'm sitting in the room and, you know, that's new for a lot of people in the room, but but I think it was a great thing for the chief to do at the time, to make sure that people understand that, you know, the community is all of us.
You know, you shouldn't just have comfort in people that look like you, right? Because you go out in the world where everybody doesn't look like you. You're gonna come in contact with somebody who's Black, brown, Asian, whatever the case may be. So it's very important that we find ourselves in those spaces. So I was glad to do it for a few years.
GILGER: What did you hear from officers? What are their fears, their concerns? Do they want to be fair and equitable to folks?
MILLER: I think so, but what happens is you, you, you find people who have been in the system for a very long time and they're very influential. So, you can do all the training in the world that you want. You can have new officers come on the scene, but if they run into a sergeant who has a racial bias or animos, he's going to nurture that in new officers. And so that's why we have to make sure it's not just cause like training now.
I go to the academies often, I do question and answer sessions in the academies, various academies in the Valley. And the issue is not really some of the newer officers, right? The people that are coming out now. It's people who've been a part of the system for 15-20 years when things were OK to just hit somebody and, you know, it's a part of the job, and and they're trying to change the force in various agencies and what that looks like, but when you have people who have these entrenched ideas, ideologies and positions, it's really hard.
GILGER: Let me ask you about one of the latest controversies to hit the Phoenix Police Department, which is the case, of course, of Tyron McAlpin, who is a Black deaf man with cerebral palsy who was beaten and tased by officers. That body cam video became a big point and it's still happening now. What was your reaction to that case? You were involved in that.
MILLER: So I was the person who reached out to the county attorney to get the charges dismissed. I was the person who reached out and said, hey, there's a problem here, this does not look OK. And when you look at it, at the end of the day, it was a straight escalation when they made contact with him, right? There were, there were a lot of things about this particular case that just were not OK. There's a certain form that they were supposed to fill out to say that he had these disabilities, and he was differently abled. They didn't fill that out, right?
So the judge is not even knowing that this person is deaf, this person has cerebral palsy, etc. Arizona, there are a lot of different cities and states you can see that will fire a police officer easily. Arizona's not one of those states. And I'm not saying people just need to lose their job for making a mistake, right? But when something's egregious, we need to make sure that we're setting a standard that this is not OK. You don't just get a slap on the wrist and get to go out here and do it again.
GILGER: So there is speculation now that the DOJ investigation into the Phoenix PD may go by the wayside under a Trump administration's Department of Justice. What do you think about that? Do you think that'll happen?
MILLER: I think if that happens, it'd be a horrible thing. I think it would be an absolutely horrible thing if that happens. The issues that the Department of Justice raised are valid issues and valid concerns that should be nonpartisan. The Department of Justice should not be utilized as a political arm or a partisan arm of an administration.
So if there's an issue with a police agency that needs to move forward, that oversight, those changes, recommendations, whatever it may be, those things need to remain, and it will be my hope. That whomever is in charge of the DOJ does not, you know, go soft on these things, especially when the community is crying out.
GILGER: I want to ask you lastly, Pastor, about your role as a pastor, right? Like, when you look at both sides of this and you've seen both sides of it, you see it all the time with your son, right? I wonder where you think the gap is in understanding like, like when you preach about this, what do you say?
MILLER: So I, I preach Jesus. I tend not to get into my social advocacy from the pulpit. Some people do, I don't, I don't do that. But when I speak to people outside of the pulpit, I explain to them, whether they be police agencies or civilians, at the end of the day, how we fix this, how we build this bridge as we communicate.
We share with one another and we're not so we don't operate in silos to where we don't communicate to the people that are being affected, right? So if you're a police agency and people in the community are saying they're being policed harshly, you can't just say no, they're not. If you're in the community, you're saying, well, we don't like the police in our neighborhood. OK, well, there are things going on in your neighborhood, the police have to be present, right, for you to be safe.
There was a group of people saying abolish the police, and I told them, I said, that's fine, so if you abolish the police, OK, I'm I'm let's just say that's OK. If you abolish the police, if your cousin breaks in my home, take my TV. Are you gonna make them bring it back, fix whatever they broke? Are you gonna do any of those things? Are you gonna make them pay me for whatever damage they did? What do you mean? What do you mean what I mean.
We live in a society where people do things that are wrong, and if somebody does something wrong, you want somebody to come and support you and make sure that you're safe, but you also don't want to be victimized by those same people in different settings. So that's kind of what I share every space that I find myself in. But across the pulpit, I, I just, I just preached a way to be encouraged, edified, and and and know that you can have your best life in God. That's what I do across the pulpit.
But in my community, and my advocacy space, I share the facts that we have to work together for this thing to get better, and you cannot deny what's glaringly apparent.
GILGER: In that though, I mean, there has to be a religious motivation for you.
MILLER: The Bible gives us a mandate. The Bible says that I should love my neighbor as I love myself, and so when I see my neighbor hurting or harmed because I love them just like I love myself, it puts me in a position to speak up, and that's exactly what it is. I have to. My goal, I have five sons. My goal is to leave the world a better place than I found it. And so that's what I have to do. So as long as I'm able to speak to people in power and have conversations, I'll do that. As long as I'm able to, you know, stand on the corner and hold up a sign, I'll do that. I'll do whatever I can to make sure that communities are properly policed.
The police understand that they are welcome, right, and that they are appreciated,, but that everybody understands that in order for this world to be what we desire for it to be, we gotta work together.
