City of Phoenix Launches Database in Response to DOJ Report
In June, the Department of Justice published a massive report detailing what it found to be a severe pattern of unconstitutional and discriminatory behavior by the Phoenix Police Department.
Now, in an effort to promote transparency and accountability, the City of Phoenix has launched an interactive website that will allow the public to search, read and view the materials relevant to what was described in the DOJ report.
The database includes documents on several internal investigations where officers were found to have complied or broken agency policies. Some of the IA reports released through the website include investigations into the Wall Street Journal reporter detained by an officer in 2022 and the 2019 traffic stop that resulted in a pregnant woman being held at gunpoint.
The DOJ report, which took 34 months to complete, described 132 events to support the allegations. During that time, the department turned over roughly 179,000 documents and 22,000 body-worn camera videos provided to DOJ during its investigation.
Since the report’s release, Interim Police Chief Michael Sullivan has pushed for a greater degree of transparency in how the department conducts itself. In January, the department released a report titled The Phoenix Police Department: The Road to Reform which outlined planned policy changes. Sullivan said this public database is another step towards those goals.
“Evidence like incident reports, body-worn camera videos and internal review documents are crucial to understand each incident described by DOJ,” Sullivan said in a press release. “These materials are important for our community to see, and vital for the City to analyze as we strive to be a self-assessing and self-correcting department.”
City officials say that they aim to focus on the remedial measures that the DOJ recommended with an emphasis on accountability and training reforms.
According to the report, Phoenix PD had a pattern and practice of using excessive force, unlawfully arresting and citing people experiencing homelessness, and discriminating against Black and Hispanic people over the last half-decade.
That report found Phoenix police violated the constitutional rights of homeless people and minorities. Less than 1% of the city’s population is homeless. Yet the DOJ report emphasized how 37% of the city’s misdemeanor arrests and citations involved the homeless population, based on an analysis of police data from 2016 to 2022.
DOJ INVESTIGATES PHOENIX PD
