Phoenix provides new details on homeless incidents in DOJ report
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Arizona’s Family Investigates took a closer look at how police handled incidents involving the homeless that were cited in the blistering DOJ report on Phoenix Police.
Between January 2016 and March 2022, federal investigators said Phoenix officers logged nearly 370,000 hours on nearly half a million trespassing calls.
They determined the homeless accounted for 37% of all Phoenix Police Department arrests and citations.
One body-camera video from Feb. 15, 2020, shows police approaching a man outside a gas station near 32nd Street just south of Interstate 10 after seeing him talking to two women they later said looked uncomfortable.
“I didn’t commit no crime,” the man can be heard saying.
They repeatedly asked for his name and wanted to check to see if he had any outstanding warrants.
But things quickly escalate. They placed the guy in handcuffs.
“Didn’t do nothing,” the man said to police.
“What you got? Resisting and trespassing,” one officer remarks as he looks through the man’s backpack.
This is one of the 22 incidents involving the homeless that the DOJ cited in its report.
“It’s not surprising at all,” Stan Kephart, a former police chief turned expert witness, said.
Phoenix police said they found officers didn’t act within policy.
An internal investigation later found one of the officers didn’t know why the other had stopped the man.
After being reviewed, the officer who made the initial stop was given an 8-hour suspension.
The city said this incident was the only one of the 22 incidents that fell under administrative review, meaning the calls didn’t involve any use of force or allegations of misconduct at the time they happened.
Kephart explained that police don’t have the resources and training to deal with these calls effectively.
“The only thing they can use is this trespassing ordinance, which tells them to leave,” he said.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling back in June changed how cities can respond to the homeless.
They can now ban them from sleeping outside even when there are not enough shelter beds.
In Phoenix, beginning Sept. 1, people can’t camp within 500 feet of a school, childcare facility, shelter or city park.
On Friday, the Police Department posted videos, photos and reports associated with more than 100 incidents cited in the DOJ investigation.
The city wrote that releasing this information would give people “a better understanding of the allegations” as the police department examines ways to improve.
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