PHOENIX — The Department of Justice is largely expected to abandon its work to put Phoenix police under federal oversight once Donald Trump takes office, according to legal experts and police accountability leaders.
But they added Phoenix would be “foolish” to think that outside community and/or legal groups won’t take the DOJ’s findings and continue their effort.
ABC15 has also learned the DOJ is still conducting interviews with people harmed by Phoenix officers, raising speculation that federal attorneys will file a lawsuit ahead of the inauguration.
“I don’t think that’s the reality that the Phoenix Police Department can get away with what is now plainly in the record,” said Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, ACLU’s Deputy Project Director on Policing. “Any lawyer could take that report into court tomorrow and use it against the Phoenix police department.”
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Christy Lopez, a former deputy chief with the DOJ, said she expects the Trump administration to shut down most of its police oversight work and end consent agreement negotiations, which happened last time the president-elect was in office.
But Lopez also believes it’s likely Phoenix will face lawsuits if that happens.
“There is absolutely the possibility for either a class action, or individual plaintiffs, to bring lawsuits against the Phoenix Police Department – one lawsuit or a hundred lawsuits regarding the incidents outlined in the DOJ report,” said Lopez, who led federal pattern-or-practice investigations and served as Oakland’s police monitor. “That’s one way to try to achieve reform.”
After a three-year investigation, the DOJ released a scathing 126-page report against Phoenix police in June, finding systemic problems throughout the department. Since then, Phoenix has dragged out its response to the report and negotiations with the DOJ over a potential consent agreement.
Federal officials have been clear that they believe the severity of Phoenix’s policing failures requires strict oversight.
In a statement, the City of Phoenix said, “There is no new additional information regarding conversations with the Department of Justice since our initial discussion in late September. We do not know what impact, if any, a new administration might have on the DOJ’s investigation.”
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A city spokesperson also wrote Phoenix remains “focused on continuous improvement in our responsibility to serve and protect the community while building trust through transparent, effective, and constitutional law enforcement practices.”
Lopez, who now teaches law at Georgetown University, said recent scandals indicate Phoenix can’t be trusted to police itself.
“You need transparency, and you need accountability,” Lopez said. “Those two things are only meaningful if you offer them up before someone comes and demands them. And good police agencies, they are transparent, they are accountable before anyone ever asks anything. And that’s not what’s happening in Phoenix.”
There’s a history of successful non-DOJ lawsuits in Arizona that have led to court-ordered oversight for law enforcement agencies.
Both the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (racial profiling) and Arizona’s state prison system (unconstitutional healthcare) faced strict monitoring because local community groups and victims sued them in the U.S. District Court of Arizona.
ABC15 has learned there have been discussions in the legal and advocacy communities about plans to carry on the DOJ’s work to seek oversight for Phoenix PD if the feds quit.
“The Department of Justice is going to be controlled by Donald Trump but civil rights lawyers will not be, Rolnick Borchetta said. “So, it’s foolish to think that lawyers are not going to take (the DOJ report) and do something with it.”
Regardless of what President Trump’s incoming attorney general may decide, ABC15 has confirmed that DOJ attorneys are still working on the matter.
After the election, the DOJ interviewed Michael Kenyon, who suffered third-degree burns after several Phoenix officers held him facedown on asphalt in a record-breaking heatwave.
The continued investigation has led some local lawyers and community activists to believe that the DOJ could file a lawsuit against Phoenix ahead of the inauguration regardless of the new administration’s plans.
Contact ABC15 Chief Investigator Dave Biscobing at Dave@ABC15.com.
