The city of Phoenix and its police force launched a website in response to a scathing U.S. Justice Department report outlining a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination. The website includes incident records, body camera footage and evidence in cases mentioned in the report. The city had provided federal investigators with 179,000 documents and 22,000 body camera videos. Interim Police Chief Michael Sullivan said such information is crucial for understanding the incidents that were included in the DOJ report. “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,” Sullivan said. City Manager Jeff Barton said the website represents a commitment to accountability and transparency and that it provides the public with access to “the facts.”
The DOJ report did not list specific information such as incident numbers or dates, but Phoenix officials said city staff were able to identify many of the events and upload associated materials to the site. The site also includes information on what Phoenix calls its “road to reform” and what the police department is doing to reduce the number of use of force incidents. Sullivan said the city is analyzing the 37 recommendations outlined by DOJ and comparing them to actions already taken by the police force to enhance policy, training and other systems. Phoenix is the fifth-largest U.S. city. Similar DOJ investigations in Albuquerque, Baltimore and elsewhere have found systemic problems related to excessive force and civil rights violations, some resulting in costly consent decrees that have lasted years. Since April 2021, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has launched 11 pattern-or-practice investigations into law enforcement agencies. That includes Phoenix, Minneapolis and Louisville. It’s enforcing consent decrees at 12 law enforcement agencies.