Click to enlarge Phoenix Police said they would cooperate with the DOJ investigation. Some officials are pushing back. Twitter / Phoenix Police After the Justice Department announced an investigation by the Phoenix Police Department into discriminatory policing, violence and other misconduct, a backlash has risen among Phoenix police officers. Initial reactions to news of the investigation last week were muted: in a brief statement last Thursday, the Phoenix Police Union pledged to “cooperate fully” with the investigation; Police Chief Jeri Williams admitted that there was “room for improvement” in the department. But in an interview with KTAR News Monday morning, Phoenix Police Union President Michael Britt London adopted a more hostile tone, calling the investigation “very worrying” and adding that the union’s cooperation with its results “remains to be seen”. (London didn’t respond to New Times inquiries.) “The first thing we did was contact our friends who were involved with the DOJ,” London said. “Nobody has anything good to say about it. “He later claimed that the Phoenix Police Department had indeed” brought officers to justice “some confusion about what started the investigation in the first place, despite the Department of Misconduct’s long and bloody track record. London said he asked lawyers for the DOJ “whether it was the mayor or the council or one of our critics who brought them”. here. “They just replied, according to London, that” they had been watching Phoenix for a while. “That would make sense: The Phoenix Police regularly top the lists of the highest number of police shootings in the country and on some of their more egregious cases of Use of force has made national headlines. But London has brushed off the patterns, saying instead: it feared the DOJ would use “anything” as a reason to conclude a consent decree with the department – a method the agency is using to reform local police forces. “Of course, that’s just suspicion and speculation right now.” Such suspicions are rampant on social media. A Phoenix police officer, Jimmy Toon, commented on a Facebook message about the investigation, calling the investigation a “slap in the face”: “The most corrupt Nation Agency and They. “We are conducting an investigation into our practices,” he wrote, saying the agency “should do its own business.” Other local police officers are calling for outside intervention to fend off the investigation [Attorney General’s Office] hire a team to oversee the Biden Justice Department investigation, “Maricopa County Community Colleges Police Union president James Hill wrote on his Facebook page, saying it would” ensure the rights of Arizona police officers “are protected would. In an interview, Hill told the Phoenix New Times that he found the investigation to be “a 100 percent political move,” equivalent to a “federal takeover” by local police. “This is just another arrow in the quiver of ‘defund the Police,'” he said, echoing experts who have taken the Phoenix investigation as an example of liberal hostility towards law enforcement. However, Attorney General Mark Brnovich has not yet responded to his inquiries, Hill said. Meanwhile, the news of the investigation has been gratifying to the many politicians and activists who have long called for greater oversight and accountability of the Phoenix police force. At a press conference on Friday, local organizers said they welcomed the news, “We want real action to be taken,” said Kenneth Smith of Unity Collective, a local advocacy group. But some activists also have reservations. In a statement Thursday, advocacy group Poder in Action noted that the DOJ’s investigation “has been extremely costly to taxpayers while increasing resources for law enforcement agencies” and “recycling ineffective police reforms” – even if they are for the police unsettling the DOJ investigation, “the group warned,” is likely to be another failed attempt to rule the Phoenix Police Department, this time at a cost of several million dollars. ”
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