A federal civil rights investigation into law enforcement in Phoenix, the nation's fifth-largest city, reveals discriminatory practices against Black, Hispanic, and Native American individuals, unlawful detention of homeless individuals, and the use of excessive and unjustified deadly force by the police, NPR reports. According to a U.S. Justice Department report released on Thursday, DOJ investigators found stark racial disparities in how officers in the Phoenix Police Department enforce certain laws, including low-level drug and traffic offenses. Phoenix officers also shoot at people who do not pose an imminent threat, investigators found. Often in similar cases, the federal government pursues a court-enforced consent decree, which tracks city reforms through monitors and regular reports to the court. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said that city officials would meet June 25 to get legal advice and discuss next steps.
There is "overwhelming statistical evidence" that the disparities found in Phoenix policing are due to discrimination, the Justice Department found. Phoenix officers enforce certain laws — such as low-level drug and traffic offenses, loitering and trespassing — more harshly against Black, Hispanic and Native American people than against white people who engage in the same conduct, DOJ investigators concluded. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who leads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, also criticized Phoenix for "over-policing" homeless people, including arrests without reasonable suspicion of a crime. More than a third of the Phoenix Police Department's misdemeanor arrests and citations were of homeless people, the report says. It also said police shootings happened because of officers' "reckless tactics," and that police "unreasonably delay" providing aid to people they have shot and use force against those who are unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.