Tempe politicians want police to run collections for campaign reform plan

Tempe city councilors hope people of color, poor won't mind footing the bill for politicians' backbone transplants

In what must rank as one of the most boneheaded moves in Tempe government history, the Tempe city council is considering turning to a regressive fee tacked onto traffic tickets in order to pay for a public campaign system for city council and mayoral elections, all in the name of thwarting the increasing grip that developers have on the upside-down pyramid.

Citing an electoral system taken prisoner by developers, local elected officials hope that adding a fee on top of speeding tickets will raise an independent source of revenue for funding candidates not captive to wealthy real estate interests (presumably these captives include the current council).

Speaking to AzCentral, Councilman Schapira described the current workings of city government in bleak terms:

“Right now in Tempe, if you’re a pro-developer council member who always votes the way developers want you to vote, developers are going to find a way to finance your campaign and you’re basically guaranteed re-election.”

The evidence for his claim is plain to see for most anyone in Tempe with eyes. The pace of new building in Tempe is rapid and, fueled by tax breaks doled out left and right by the city, aims almost exclusively for the luxury market. 

Locals feel increasingly squeezed out. Many have seen their rents sky rocket in recent years. Rising rents are a common complaint on a downtown Tempe neighborhood group, Maple-Ash-Farmer-Wilson (MAFW), which boasts nearly 3300 members.

A recent ABC15 piece pointed out that Tempe average rents have jumped nearly $250 since 2010 with most of that almost certainly coming in the more current end of that range. 

Tempe rents rising steeply (graphs via ABC15)

Clearly there is a problem. City council is basically waving the white flag to developers and telling city residents quite clearly that they have no backbone and that they are helpless before the developer juggernaut. 

But while almost everyone who isn't receiving a massive tax break to build luxury condos can probably agree that stemming the influence of real estate profiteers is a noble cause, there's a big problem with the solution some city councilors are putting forward.

A fee placed on speeding tickets has several serious issues, not least of all questions about the group implementing it and who's going to pay for it. Since the fee is attached to speeding tickets, the task of collection falls to the Tempe Police Department. Let's address that first.

Last November, Down and Drought broke the story locally about massive disparities in Tempe PD's African-American arrest rate. Following unrest in Ferguson sparked by the shooting of Michael Brown, USA Today reviewed arrest reports nationwide. That investigation found that the disproportionate arrest of blacks was common throughout the country, but specifically it noted that many cities, including Tempe, arrested blacks at rates higher than Ferguson PD.

This information recently raised serious questions about the ability of Tempe PD to do their job without a racial bias. Downtown residents took concerns about this data to the city and officials discussed it at a February 10th meeting of the Tempe Human Relations Committee (.PDF).

Via Feb 10th Tempe Human Relations Committee Minutes

At another meeting with the city, Tempe residents were assured that in response to the data, a massive Tempe policing operation known as "Safe and Sober" would be canceled. 

The operation, highly unpopular in the party-prone neighborhoods surrounding ASU, featured over a dozen and sometimes nearly 20 police agencies flooding the area, stopping thousands of drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians over the course of several weekends, ostensibly to combat what the city called "rowdyism." Partying, essentially. Something many locals consider a birthright.

Considering the USA Today data, residents of MAFW demanded that the city account for the racial breakdown in those stops. The city replied that it had no way to track that data because police agencies from other cities took those reports with them when they left. Whether true or not, claiming incompetence is not a very inspiring defense.

Considering the scale of the program and the disparities USA Today had revealed, the city wisely canceled the program. Taking that data into account, for the two years it ran Safe and Sober may have been one of the biggest profiling operations in the country, in the same category as NYC's racist "Stop and Frisk" program.

Graphic via State Press

Writing in the Arizona Republic, Tempe City Councilman David Schapira discussed the USA Today data:

In February, The Republic wrote of disproportionate Black arrest rates in the Valley. The article noted that three East Valley cities, including Tempe, "arrested Black people at a rate higher than in Ferguson, Mo." in 2011 and 2012. Despite initial challenges to the data in the article, our own internal data ultimately showed the same thing.

In the same years examined in the article, our data showed that Black Tempe residents were arrested at nearly three times the rate of White residents, a proportion that is indeed worse than Ferguson.

Not long after, Tempe Police Chief Tom Ryff, the long-serving top cop in town and originator of the Safe and Sober program, resigned. Local media reported that the USA Today data had played a role in his departure.  Again, Councilman Schapira spoke out, saying "I'm excited to see what a new chief can do in terms of building morale in the department and building a culture ...that's a positive one for the city and building really strong relationships in the community."

When speaking before the city's Human Relations Commission, Chief Ryff and Director Brenda Buren justified the data by saying, essentially, that it showed that police nationwide are racist and that Tempe PD may only be targeting blacks who drive through the city. Again, not much of a defense. If you have to indict your entire profession, you've lost the argument. Tempe historically was a "sundown town," a city where after sunset African-Americans and other people of color were strongly encouraged to get out of town. Tempe PD's assertion that they target out of towners lines up with this disgraceful tradition.

This is all highly relevant to the city's proposal to fund its clean elections program with speeding tickets. After all, TPD's documented racism, acknowledged by the city, will obviously effect the way it enforces speeding tickets. The truth is, not everyone catches TPD's attention equally, and as a result, these fees, tacked onto speeding tickets, will disproportionately come from people of color, particularly Tempe's black population and any African-Americans passing through or visiting Tempe.

The city seems bent on projecting a progressive attitude lately, with its recent changes to its discrimination law. But piggy-backing your election "reforms" on the backs of the Valley's non-white population, collected through a police department with well-documented and officially acknowledged racism, hardly seems in line with this objective.

Councilwoman Kuby says it's not a tax.

Further, given the income disparities between blacks and whites, we can reasonably  extrapolate that the poor in particular will also be disproportionately affected by these fees. And it just so happens that African-Americans and the poor are also the most likely to have been deliberately excluded from the electoral system through just the kind of racially-biased policing that Tempe engages in.

And the poor are the most likely to see little value in participating in formal politics, a position city council clearly must have some sympathy for, given that they themselves are about as enfranchised as it gets and yet at the root of this reform is city councilors claims that even they are helpless before wealthy developers.

___________________________

"For a city that distinguished itself recently for arresting blacks at a higher rate than Ferguson, you'd think Tempe would be loathe to court another comparison to a city emblematic of systemic racism."

___________________________

In a recent Twitter exchange with Down and Drought, Councilwoman Kuby seemed averse to calling this a tax, but the fact remains that it's a compulsory contribution, administered by a racist police force, taken from those least likely to protest it. It's an easy fee to assess, passing the buck onto people who can't afford it, and for whom the disruption of arrest that would come with non-payment would be the most crippling. After all, not paying a traffic ticket can land you in jail and when you're broke even a few dollars can make a big difference.

Kuby's error seems mostly centered on a desire to accomplish what she thinks is a larger good. But this still doesn't excuse ignoring the details of how it will be implemented and who will be implementing it.

Schapira's backing of the new fee is even more troubling, indicating a peculiar selectivity when it comes to TPD's racism. While he was clear in his June 9th Arizona Republic editorial about TPD's racism and its impact on Safe and Sober, he was somehow unconcerned about it just a few weeks later when defending Tempe's new ordinance banning smoking with children in the car.

In that case, he was not bothered by Tempe PD's documented racism and its impact on enforcement of the law.  Quite a reversal!

"We fashioned the ordinance to treat violations as secondary offenses. Officers will only cite those pulled over for something else.

In other words, if a cop busts you for speeding and sees a lit cigarette in the ashtray and a kid sucking fumes in the back seat, you're going to owe $50."

What's the difference? How could it be that safe and sober was a racist policing operation while somehow other enforcement measures, like the smoking law or the proposed fee-financed public campaign system, are immune from such biased policing? After all, a racist police force that is documented to target blacks will certainly likewise cite them more often for secondary offenses. You can't be cited for a secondary offense if you're not stopped in the first place, and we know who TPD likes to stop. This is carceral progressivism and should be opposed. City council needs to reverse course immediately.

In our opinion, the shocking data detailing Tempe PD's disproportionate arrests rates for African-Americans ought to have the City of Tempe pulling back on all enforcement and seriously questioning its application across the board. Instead, they seem to be charging headlong into policy territory -- public funding via criminal fees -- reminiscent of Ferguson. For a city that distinguished itself recently for arresting blacks at a higher rate than Ferguson, you'd think Tempe would be loathe to court another comparison to a city emblematic of systemic racism.

The bottom line is, it's not fair to make the city's most marginalized populations pay for the city council's lack of backbone. This fee is a regressive tax extracted at gunpoint by a racist police force. Further, it will raise money from groups most excluded from or most fed up with politics. If the city council can't find the wherewithal to stand up to developers and real estate interests seeking handouts, then maybe they don't deserve their jobs in the first place. Poor residents and African-Americans in Tempe are already paying out of proportion to their numbers, is it right to make them pay again?

Cops say what they really think about ASU Professor Ore in online fourms and it's not pretty

Just keyboard warriors? Behold one cop's response to the arrest of Professor Ore. Here's what a bunch more had to say. Are you mad yet?

REM870 is a reference to a shotgun commonly used by police

On August first, ASU English professor Ersula Ore will be sentenced for "passively resisting an unlawful arrest" after Officer Stewart Ferrin confronted her for jaywalking and obstructing traffic in closed off a construction zone near the university.

The case sparked outrage, protest and even some drama at one of the Tempe city council candidate forums when outraged community members vocalized their frustration with local cops. As the scandal put pressure on ASU, the officer was put on leave and the two top bosses at the university cop shop were eventually replaced. Local dissident cop blog, The Integrity Report, has been documenting the internal shakeup which at least some officers seem to hope will create an opportunity to rein in a police force that they allege (with a good deal of evidence) is unaccountable and out of control.

Professor Ore (Photo via Phoenix New Times)

But since Ore took responsibility for her act of self-defense, much of the tension has dissipated from this once highly controversial and contentious case. Coverage was mixed in the media but it has mostly dropped off the radar as she moves towards sentencing.

Notable exceptions include a recent exchange of letters to the editor, one by former Mesa cop Bill Richardson defending Ferrin's character, followed by a response challenging it ("Letter: Police officer's personality doesn't matter"), both run in the State Press, ASU's east campus newspaper. Over the course of the scandal, one particular local weekly news blog/magazine left some very interesting things out of the story, but we'll come back to that at the end.

We at Down and Drought pay a lot of attention to the police, including cop online forums. So when we saw last week that New York Magazine had run a piece focusing on the comments from officers on various cop websites regarding the recent death of a cigarette vender, who appears to have died as a result of very rough treatment by the NYPD, we thought we'd give the Ore case the same treatment. We thought: let's see what cops have to say online about her case, under the cover of (what they think is ) anonymity.

As the NY Magazine article points out, in order to post on cop forums like PoliceOne.com, you have to register and be verified as an actual cop or retired law enforcement officer. PoliceOne.com boasts over 200,000 members and claims that they "confirm the status of all officers registering... by calling that officer’s department directly." Which means when you read opinions from commentators on their forums, you can be pretty sure you're getting the thoughts of a cop or former cop.

We were able to track some of these officers back to their departments ourselves through basic internet searches and confirm that they are in fact cops, but we weren't able to link any of them directly to ASU -- although some of the comments we looked at demonstrated knowledge of policing in Tempe and Arizona.

READ: TEMPE POLICE HAVE A STINGRAY CELL PHONE SPYING DEVICE BUT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT IT

That said, it's important to note that the comments we're sharing here, while outrageous, weren't out of step with the general tenor of comments we found. No comments defended Ore and most posters thought that Ferrin had been too forgiving with her. As we've demonstrated before, Phoenix and Tempe police have notoriously bad senses of humor (see here, and here, and here). So there's no reason to think that they are any better than online cops in terms of their opinions.

So let's dig in and see what some cops had to say about the Ore arrest. To get things started, here's one officer making a joke referencing sexual assault. Remember, Ore objected vocally on the video about Ferrin's manhandling of her causing her dress to hike up. Thus an officer naturally thought this was an appropriate joke to make.

 In the same comment thread, another officer chimes in:

In a different post on the same site, user "SgtDavidWilliams" rushes to Ferrin's defense, counseling that she's lucky she didn't get the rougher treatment he thinks she deserved:

Advocating for less tolerance and a higher degree of violence was common in the online cop forums we looked at. Most officers took the position that Ferrin had been too kind in his interaction with Ore.

Officers also frequently argued for liberal use of the Taser. One user hinted in a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" sort of way that "I did see a taser on his belt, correct?" In the comment below, the reference to "sparky" (the taser) may or may not be a double entendre also alluding to the ASU mascot, but it certainly indicates a casualness that is disturbing when it comes to the use of a weapon that has been linked to many deaths over the years.

Along similar lines was another comment boasting that the "college professor would've met the pavement far sooner had I been arresting her." Yet another joked that Ferrin should "probably work on that straight arm bar takedown." Later in the thread another member says, "She really needed to taste the color of the paint on the hood."

Another set of comments focused on Ore's race and gender, reflecting the usual tact and sophistication that one tends to expect from the reactionary right.

 

 

  

In an era of increasing skepticism and worry about the police, even on the traditionally law and order right, comments like those we found don't do cops any favors in the PR department. If white middle class people -- the traditional base of support for law enforcement, no matter how brutal -- are worried about their interactions with police then it's an indication of something significant going on. Police should be worried. The carte blanche they've had for, well, basically forever may be in danger.

And those curious omissions I mentioned at the beginning? One of the curious features of the Ore coverage was the oddly reactionary treatment from the Phoenix New Times, spearheaded by Ray Stern. Stern went pretty hard against Ore. He conceded Ferrin's approach appeared "mildly thuggish," but when Ore pleaded guilty he pronounced somewhat smugly that, "it looks like Ore's done fighting the good fight. We're not expecting her to follow up on the threat she made in the video to sue the (bleep) out of the officer or ASU."

Read: If ASU can't protect faculty from its violent police, what does it mean for the rest of us?

In one article, Stern in passing gives us a brief history of Stewart Ferrin, who it was revealed early on hails from a law enforcement family and had long harbored aspirations of continuing that legacy. But what legacy? Strangely, Stern fails to mention another little bit of Ferrin law enforcement family history -- one detailed in the very archives of the Phoenix New Times itself!

In a September 1998 article entitled "Thrust and Parry," the New Times detailed in a feature article the story of Alvin Yellowhair, a Native American student at ASU who alleged that Stewart Ferrin's father, John Ferrin, then an officer with the Tempe PD, had beaten and sodomized him with a nightstick after arresting him at a party.

"Advocating for less tolerance and a higher degree of violence was common in the online cop forums we looked at." 

The case, which involved missing evidence and allegations of obstructionism from city officials, was eventually ruled in Ferrin's favor, and he came out the winner in a lawsuit by Yellowhair, too, which was finally resolved by jury in 2005. But the case led to allegations of an out of control police force without proper supervision and the revelation that the senior Ferrin, at that point, had had four citizen complaints against him which the city didn't want to reveal. Does any of this sound familiar? White cop, civilian person of color, ASU, use of force, out of control police force, potential cover up and lack of investigation? Quite an omission, if you ask me!

But Stern's probably right when he says that "ASU's very sensitive to the pubic perception, especially given President Michael Crow's goal to attract 100,000 students to lucrative online-degree programs." Indeed, the University should be concerned about how they will be viewed by prospective or returning students and their parents. Especially if those students aren't white.

Nothing to see here!

As Professor Ore faces sentencing, with a shakeup going on at ASU PD, and with residents in the surrounding neighborhoods increasingly fed up with both the actions of local cops and the complete failure of the politicians to do anything about it, the university and the city would each be well-advised to consider taking immediate public steps to address these concerns with concrete actions.

Locals have put forward several options, from repealing the loud party ordinances that so quickly can escalate under heavy handed policing, to canceling the upcoming "safe & sober" campaign (in which cops invade the neighborhoods and detain residents at rates higher than NYC's "stop & frisk" program), or selling off controversial spy equipment like the Stingray mass cell phone monitoring device.

How about a program of de-militarizing TPD in general? In an era of mass corporate tax giveaways downtown, why not raise some cash by selling off that useless cop clutter? On a related note, does the Tempe Citizens’ Panel for Review of Police Complaints and Use of Force even meet? Down and Drought has been following the public page for this supposed oversight board for a year now and have yet to see a single posting for a public meeting nor any updates on what they're up to.

Meanwhile candidates for city council have to be forced by angry crowds to discuss the police, and the only solutions they seem to have is lavishing them with even more expensive toys which residents can be assured they will abuse. Increasingly, Tempe government looks completely out of step with a public that is asking themselves just what the hell is going on with the cops that patrol their neighborhoods. Does the city have any answers for them? It appears that answer is, no.

If ASU can't protect faculty from its violent police, what does it mean for the rest of us?

If you read the outline "ASU Vision and Goals: 2013 and Beyond" hosted on the page of the Office of the President, the first two objectives are as follows:

Maintain the fundamental principle of accessibility to all students qualified to study at a research university

Maintain university accessibility to match Arizona’s socioeconomic diversity

Which may seem more than a bit ironic in light of the recent ASU PD beat down of a black professor who refused to passively submit to a college cop's street harassment. As anyone knows who lives in the area, this particular street is blocked off to traffic for the construction of a pedestrian mall (this is ASU's vision for the future boiled down to its essence, by the way). People routinely cross at this location in other than legal ways as a result of debris, construction materials or because they feel unsafe walking at night.

Photo via AzFamily

While some dispute the assertions of profiling and racism being made about this particular interaction, the fact that this is a white cop stopping a black woman can't be ignored, not least of all given the stark and long history of police racism in both Arizona and the US. The stop has all the hallmarks of "walking while black," the selective harassment and enforcement of often petty laws by law enforcement against blacks. But regardless, the image speaks for itself, and countless people, including potential students and their parents, will now associate ASU with what looks on the face of it to be a racialized and violent police over-reaction and power trip.

IF PROFESSORS AREN'T SAFE FROM ASU POLICE VIOLENCE, WHO IS?

On video Dr. Ore is heard asserting over and over that she is a professor at the school, to no avail. The cop, like police in general, isn't about to back down just because there's a more reasonable alternative available (a warning, for instance). And Ore's appeal to her status fell on deaf ears.

Indeed, Dr. Ore's lawyer, Alane M. Roby, is quick to reiterate this status in his public appeals. In a statement to CNN, he said,  "Professor Ore's one crime that evening was to demand respect that she deserves as a productive, educated and tax paying member of society." 

But, of course, it isn't just the "productive, educated and tax-paying" members of society who deserve not to fear getting interrogated and beaten by cops on Tempe streets, it's everyone. So what does this mean for residents and students of lesser stature?

A memorial to Austin Del Castillo (photo via New Times)

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND ESCALATION

Last year, during the height of its ASU-supported "Safe & Sober" invasion of the neighborhoods surrounding the Tempe campus, Tempe police shot and killed Austin Del Castillo in plain daylight at one of the busiest intersections in the city. At least one bullet reportedly missed and hit the now closed but then operational Chili's restaurant. Del Castillo was shot, in part, because he was not acting like a "productive, educated and tax paying member of society." Witnesses disputed police claims that Del Castillo was lunging at officers when they opened fire on him.

Likewise when police let loose on William Barret, who had broken into House of Tricks' renowned wine cache for a taste of the good stuff.  Police blasted on him when he supposedly lobbed an empty bottle at an officer.  The officer was uninjured, but from jail Barret said, “They shot me in the hand. If I stuck my head out they could have shot my head off.” When in doubt, escalate seems to be the ethic of the cops patrolling ASU and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Purchase order for spy camera (Image via The Integrity Report)

Or, when escalation isn't the go-to option, Tempe cops go for humiliation, as in the now infamous case of Sgt. Chuck Schoville. Here at Down and Drought, we've cataloged TPD's many gaffes and abuses, including their really awful sense of humor, their expansion of their secret surveillance powers, their crackdowns on Tempe's traditional party culture, their protection of racist frats, their surveillance of tailgaters at football games, and much more.

Not covered by us, but equally troubling is the post-retirement career of former ASU top cop John Pickens, who will continue to head up University Security Initiatives, ASU's surveillance apparatus (why do they need one?). Note ASU PD's recent purchase of a KJB Security Wall Outlet Hidden Spy Camera. What's that for? Who's getting spied on? Is ASU a university or an intelligence agency (a tip of the hat to Michael Crow and his time working with CIA tech fund In-Q-Tel)?

Meanwhile TPD continues to spend $5 million a year on its own SPARC surveillance center, recently taken to task by former Mesa cop Bill Richardson in the pages of the State Press. In other troubling news, dissident cop blog "The Integrity Report" cites an ongoing history of questionable use of force and lack of accountability at the ASU cop shop. Bloggers there report several uses of force that received no review at all from department bosses. Is anyone in charge over there? Less CIA and more Keystone Kops, it seems.

All together, what we're seeing is the emergence of a local police state in Tempe operating like an army of occupation, not answerable to anyone -- regardless of social status, and apparently not accountable to anyone. In this situation, everyone has reason to be concerned about whether they will land in its cross-hairs, not just professors.

KJB Security Wall Outlet Hidden Spy Camera

CAN ASU LIVE UP TO ITS DECLARED COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY?

Indeed, students and parents of prospective students have good reason to be concerned. If ASU can't protect a black professor from the cops, what chance do those of lesser status have? Can ASU live up to its self-appointed diversity goals if it doesn't reign in its police force?

Round two of "safe & sober" is likely going to commence with the return of students in the Fall. During the last iteration (canceled abruptly after the shooting of Del Castillo), TPD, ASU PD and MCSO (the infamously racist department run by Sheriff Joe) blanketed the streets around the university with cops, making thousands of stops. In fact, as a proportion of the population, "safe & sober" rivaled NYPD's infamous "stop and frisk" campaign. Funded by the Feds, it was likely a real windfall for the city once all the fines were added up. Almost a year later, police have yet to release any details on the racial breakdown of those stops, but if history is any guide, it likely skews heavily towards people of color and other marginalized groups.

WHAT ASU NEEDS TO DO

ASU has an easy choice here, but that doesn't mean they'll make it. First of all, they should drop the charges against Dr. Ore. Then they need to fire Officer Ferrin. ASU needs to send a message that they honor their commitment to diversity and equal access to ASU and its many scattered off campus facilities. Students and residents need to know they are not going to suffer the same fate -- or worse -- as Dr. Ore.  Finally, they should withdraw from future "safe & sober" campaigns and demand the release of data on the race of those people stopped by all police forces involved, including MCSO. ASU likes to talk big about its commitments to the community. It's time to step up and make good on them.

Arizona doubles down on school to prison pipeline, expands cops in schools

A big story broke for Arizona students the other day and it wasn't the tear-jerker faux apology of state school Superintendent and compulsive racist internet troll John Huppenthal.

While the media has been safely distracted with the important questions raised by the Huppenthal mess, such as just what would a menu at a Mexican restaurant look like if it couldn't use Spanish (i.e., "Can I interest anyone in a corn flour flatbread wrap stuffed with mashed pinto beans and cheese?"), meanwhile the legislature passed a massive expansion of Arizona's school resource officer program.

This program, partially funded by Proposition 301 which passed in 2000, was expanded last week, growing it to include 137 schools and 118 officers with an added price tag of $12 million. Aside from more officers, the deal also includes the addition of three juvenile probation officers. And here's where we get to the crux of the issue.

Source: Arizona Daily Star

Over the last several years, students, activists and parents have expressed increasing concern about what's called the "school to prison pipeline."  As the adult prison population has expanded in this country, so has the number of children behind bars. And even with a relatively recent rise in the use of diversion programs in Arizona, the consequences for students can be severe, as the presence of SROs in schools leads to the increasing criminalization of student behavior, particularly students of color. Police become involved in behavior problems that previously had been treated as administrative discipline issues.

According to a Justice Policy Institute report on SROs in schools:

"In 2001, the Pinellas County (Florida) School District Police made 146 arrests, of which 54 percent were of black students. Comparatively, 19 percent of the District’s enrollment is black.

In South Carolina, black students are more likely to be referred to law enforcement than their white peers. Black students make up 42 percent of student enrollment, but 75 percent of disorderly conduct charges, of which 90 percent are referred to law enforcement.

In the 2001–2002 school year, Latino students were 22 percent of student enrollment, but 34 percent of referrals to law enforcement agencies in Colorado."

Disparities of this order ought to concern anyone and should be part of the discussion around further expanding the role for police in schools.

Source: Justice Policy Institute (.pdf)

Further, racial disparities plainly evident in policing outside school also prevail behind school walls. The ACLU Arizona has also documented the disproportionate criminalization of students of color, noting that both Latino and black youth are over-represented throughout the process, from referral and arrest to incarceration. These disparities result, in no small part, from the proliferation of "zero tolerance policies" in schools, which combine with the presence of SROs to funnel students into the criminal justice system.

These policies, which emerged from the white suburban paranoia in the 80's and 90's over drugs and violence in inner city schools, and solidified as national policy with the passing of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (perhaps offering a lesson in the unintended consequences of gun control legislation), have had greater effect in schools attended by nonwhite students.

The Justice Policy Institute has shown a direct correlation between zero tolerance policies and the proportion of students of color in a school, as well as the way that youth of color are targeted at far greater rates than white kids for all manner of disciplinary processes. In Arizona, for instance, suspensions for Native American youth ranks second in the nation and well above the national average. Likewise, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, Indigenous Peoples number 5% of the Arizona population and yet total 10% of its prison population. More SROs will only further exacerbate that disturbing trend.

Source: New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty (.pdf)

And SROs in schools pose a particular threat to immigrant youth in the land of SB1070. In 2013, the ACLU Arizona filed a complaint (.pdf) with the then Superintendent of Sunnyside Unified School District, Dr. Manuel L. Isquierdo over an incident in which a student was turned over by a school resource officer to Border Patrol over his immigration status.  Again, data from the Justice Policy Center shows that, "Even when controlling for school poverty, schools with an SRO had nearly five times the rate of arrests for disorderly conduct as schools without an SRO." SROs also pose a safety risk to students. In Tempe in February, a SRO accidentally tased a eight grader when teaching a class on bullying.

Flooding Arizona schools with cops is obviously seen as uncontroversial among media types, as not one single article I could find had even a solitary voice of dissent on the matter. More cops in schools, in the age of school shooting paranoia, is viewed as a universal good, just like zero tolerance policies were during a previous wave of school violence fears. Meanwhile, the admittedly offensive and reactionary internet comments by Superintendent Huppenthal have created a national media firestorm.

While Huppenthal's racism is a serious issue, and certainly his attacks on ethnic studies were clearly racist, banning books in school doesn't prevent students from reading them. Ideally, students do most of their reading outside of class. Libraries exist, the internet exists. Huppenthal running the schools is certainly a problem, but the presence of police in those schools is a direct every day force for institutionalized racism with real, lifelong consequences for students. The silence that has greeted this expansion of the police state is telling.

Scottsdale Police join ranks of Valley cops using "Stingray" device to spy on cell phones

As we revealed in a recent post, the Tempe Police Department has made at least two purchases of the Stingray device from the Harris Corporation, both shrouded in secrecy due to a non-disclosure agreement.  We can now reveal that another valley police department is in possession of a Stingray device. Down & Drought has learned that the Scottsdale Police Department used the controversial Stingray surveillance device on 29 "missions" in 2010, citing a Scottsdale police report which identifies the device by name in a section on the department's Technical Operations Unit.

The 2010 annual report appears to be the only public admission of Scottsdale's use of a Stingray, no other web searches by Down & Drought could find any other reference of the device by the City of Scottsdale or Scottsdale Police Department.  In the 2010 City of Scottsdale Annual Report, the Stingray is mentioned briefly in the section on the Scottsdale Police Department's Special Investigations Section Technical Operations.  According to the report, the Technical Operations Unit is "responsible for the installation and maintenance of technical surveillance equipment and systems. The Tech Ops Unit assists other work groups within the police department, including Patrol, with special technical investigative assistance." 

Police departments across the valley, and through out Arizona, are increasingly utilizing electronic surveillance devices to eavesdrop and record information with very little public knowledge about the techniques being used in the mass gathering of private and confidential information of individuals.  In an article published in March on Down & Drought, we raised concerns over the civil rights implications of the Tempe Police Department's use of an electronic surveillance device called the Stingray by citing the secrecy surrounding the devices as a result of a contractual confidentiality agreement between the City of Tempe and the manufacturer of the Stingray, the Harris Corporation.

It has been confirmed, through articles from the Arizona Republic and statements from the Arizona branch of the ACLU, that police departments in the valley, and across Arizona have purchased Stingray technology.  The AZCLU's Alessandra Meetze identified the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the Gilbert PD, and Glendale PD as valley departments in use of the Stingray device, and the Pinal County Sheriff's Department and Flagstaff PD as agencies outside the valley with Stingrays. A subsequent Arizona Republic article from December 2013 identified the Mesa PD and Phoenix PD as departments using the Stingray, with Phoenix having one in use since 2001.

The Stingray is a surveillance technology used by police to imitate a cell phone tower causing every cell phone and wireless device within range to connect with the police tower and unwittingly sharing data.  As of now, there is no way for an individual to know if their cell phone or wireless device is currently having its communications and data intercepted by police.

Scrutiny from media outlets over the Stingray technology has intensified in recent weeks after US Marshals intervened in a public records request regarding a Florida police department's use of the device.  Wired writer Kim Zetter has followed the legal battles over the non-disclosure agreements which protect police departments from releasing any information on their purchases from the Harris Corporation.  In her most recent piece on the Stingray, she covered the eyebrow raising actions of the  US Marshals seizing records requested by the ACLU regarding the Stingray's use by detectives from the Sarasota Police Department. While this brazen intervention by federal authorities has shocked civil libertarians, such efforts to thwart a public records request are common. The FBI routinely has its agents working to obscure the price, function, and uses of the Stingray device by testifying in courtroom hearings that the secrecy is necessary to stop criminal targets from learning how police may be monitoring their activities.

READ MORE COVERAGE OF LOCAL POLICE SURVEILLANCE

Most troubling is the revelation, which came from the Associated Press, that the Obama administration is actively advising local law enforcement agencies to not disclose the details of their agreements with the Harris Corporation, or the applications of the secret surveillance technology used for the Stingray device.  Whereas the FBI's public defense of the non-disclosure agreements concerned "criminals" evading the device's detection, the Obama administration is defending the secrecy surrounding the device on the grounds that to reveal any information could constitute a threat to national security. As Washington Post columnist Radley Balko remarked this week, if revealing the particulars of this device is such a threat to national security, then why is it being widely used by local police departments across the country?

Since it seems likely that these devices will continue to be used in greater number across the country, and not seized as Balko jests, then it is imperative that the core questions regarding these devices be answered.  How do they work, how many are they, how many people are going to prison due to their use, and how can an individual prevent such a device from accessing their personal information on a wireless device.  Until that occurs, it's safe to presume that the Stingray, and similar devices, can do a lot more than log call information and triangulate an individuals location, and the public deserves to know how they're being spied on this time. 

Phoenix Police threaten wave of terror, plan to murder their way towards pay raises

Are Valley police threatening to murder their way to a pay raise? Are they gunning to take food off the plates of poor children? All indications point to "affirmative."

With Phoenix cops threatening to go to the ballot to protect their bloated pay packages and fast lane pay increases -- raises that have gone far beyond that of other city workers -- the fight over police pay may not be over just because the City of Phoenix passed a budget.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

The surprise moment of political clarity that threatens to finally cut back on the bloated pay of Phoenix Police officers has led to some odd political moments already, such as local civil rights advocate Jarett Maupin rushing to the defense of the boys in blue, who so often dish out the black and blue -- and worse -- in Valley neighborhoods, especially poor neighborhoods of color.

Sal Diccicio, generally a right wing opponent of unions, voted with the union thugs this time. Will Buividas, the cops' bargainer-in-chief on this one, had this to say:  "It's weird, of course. And politics makes these strange bedfellows. The people supporting us last night were some of the same people who support The Goldwater Institute and got Goldwater to sue us on release time. It's a very interesting blender we find ourselves in."

SOCIALISTS IN BLUE

Local libertarian activist Jason Shelton, however, showed up to the city council debate as a lone dissenter, speaking after a long line of cops and police-advocates had their chance. Known for his past organizing against the hated freeway cameras and border checkpoints, Shelton denounced the police union and Phoenix officers as "socialists" and "pirates." It's nice to see the libertarian hatred of government and unions aimed in a direction that doesn't first and foremost screw over the poor for once.

Watch Shelton's comments in the the video below. Start it at 4:55 if it doesn't queue up automatically.



Shelton rightfully goes after several police myths, including the alleged dangerousness of the job and the nature of most police deaths on the job. In his remarks, Shelton mentions the leading cause of death for police: being hit by oncoming traffic.

Nevertheless, policing is universally revered in media and government. The death of any officer, for any reason, gets treated as a tragedy for the whole community, leading to civic responses quite out of proportion not only to the cause of death, but also the notice given to any other worker.

This city would be nothing without air conditioning repair technicians, for instance, and yet when is the last time we witnessed a public funeral for one of them? And yet on May 20th, the City of Phoenix placed a historical marker to commemorate the death of Officer Daryl Raetz, who was hit and killed by a vehicle while heroically making a DUI stop.

STEALING BREAD FROM THE POOR

Shelton also raises the issue of the regressive food tax, putting his finger on a crucial element of this debate that isn't getting much play: the salaries of Phoenix cops have depended in no small measure on a direct tax on the city's poorest residents.

Indeed, the Phoenix food tax was passed in 2010 specifically to preserve police jobs, among others. It's a real case of the poor paying not just more -- but twice! -- because, as a recent NPR study showed, it's the poor who are the overwhelming targets of police harassment and violence, including the fees and fines that keep the police in business.

In an April 30th position paper filed with Phoenix City Council (.pdf), PLEA (Phoenix Law Enforcement Association), one of the unions that represents Phoenix cops in the pay dispute, specifically blamed the repeal of the food tax as the cause of the pay cuts.

Police unions, used to the never-ending gravy train of raises, high tech toys, tax transfers, and Homeland Security grants, reacted with shock at the sudden reversal. Advocating for denying food to the poor is disturbing indeed. Taking it and putting it on your own plate even more so, which is essentially what the cops are advocating.

KILLING FOR A RAISE

The debate over the pay cuts come at a time of great concern over real and perceived increases in the use of lethal force by local cops (euphemistically referred to in the media with the passive voice term "officer-involved shootings"). Thus it was only natural that the two issues would become entwined in the debate over pay.

Returning to PLEA's position paper, the union itself draws the connection between increasing violence and cuts. While championing the reduction in crime by 40%, the union laments that the same hasn't been true for cop violence (.pdf) "Unfortunately, the same trend cannot be said for violence involving Phoenix police officers. In 2013 Phoenix police officers were involved in 31 officer involved shootings. Already in 2014, Phoenix police officers have been involved in 15 officer involved shootings, on pace for 60 officer involved shootings this year, almost double the amount from 2013."

As a side note, consider that both the cops and the media are happy with that tidy little bit of obfuscatory grandiloquence, the "officer-involved shooting," a politically useful bit of Newspeak that removes all blame, situating the violence in a space detached from time, space and, importantly, causality. As if the armed officer's presence were mere unfortunate happenstance.

Police bosses had already been on the defensive about shootings by cops thanks to some local coverage in the media, although local news hasn't exactly done a stellar job in covering it, as we have highlighted here at Down and Drought.

Beyond PLEA, prominent cops have linked cuts to staff and budgets to a rise in shootings, too. Jeff Hynes, a former Phoenix cop and current professor at ASU in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said in a March interview with Channel 5 that rising police violence ought to be blamed on "the reduction of police forces" and cut budgets.

READ MORE ABOUT THE MARYVALE PRECINCT

Speaking to Channel 5, Hynes made the connection between current and future police violence and budget cuts clear: "You're going to see more assaults, more shootings. You're going to see more violence." He continued, "I truly believe it's a connection with the reduction of police forces around the country and taking your officers out of the community interaction area and putting them back into a patrol function."

Channel 5 neglected to tell its readers, however, that Hynes, a former member of the PPD's Professional Standards Bureau, which is responsible for internal investigations of use of force, was himself placed on the infamous Brady List, a federally-required database of officers identified, as the New Times reports, as having done something that "calls into question their honesty." Many of these officers are on the list for use of force complaints and violations.



PLEA has made officers available for media interviews, in which they plead their case. One of them, Officer Mike "Britt" London, spoke to ABC15, complaining (with a very spacious and modern kitchen in the background) about tight budgets at home as a result of tight budgets at City Hall. ABC15's interview ended with an ominous comment from London: "I would like to know why it came to this, why they have to take from those of us who protect them."

London ran successfully for a position of trustee in the union in 2011. While campaigning for that position, London opened his candidate statement in the association's newsletter with a quote: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far”. He declared, "I have always liked this expression and I think it can be applied to many areas of life." London prides himself on his status as a "street cop" where, presumably, he puts his philosophy into practice. Later, London described policing (he is based out of the perpetually scandal-plagued Maryvale Precinct) as "a job that sometimes feels isolating and thankless."

Meanwhile, Mesa PD Chief Frank Milstead claimed in a May 2 interview with Channel 3 that he didn't really believe that shootings by officers were on the rise. "I don't know that there's a real spike in violence as some of these pieces of violence as these events have been close in proximity timewise, which makes it very apparent to us that it happens," Mistead said.

READ MORE ABOUT PPD'S MAJOR OFFENDER'S BUREAU

Interestingly, Milstead, who started the controversial and scandal-plagued Major Offenders Bureau, was speaking to the news in order to mark the addition of the name of Detective Hobbs (also from MOB), recently killed in a gun fight on duty, to the Phoenix Police Museum's fallen officer display.

We've written about the Hobbs case already, but since that article ran, we have come into possession of a new document regarding Hobbs' past history with use of force. As we disclosed last time, previous public records searches had raised some questions about Hobbs' career.

From our previous article:

Further research revealed a court document detailing an encounter that resulted in the imprisonment of a man who confronted Hobbs on a stakeout. Hobbs was in plain clothes in an unmarked car. Haidar Muhsin al Bazony, eventually convicted of aggravated assault in the incident, was responding to a call from his wife who was concerned about men lingering outside her townhouse.

Bazony, armed with a handgun and backed up by a friend he recruited to aid him, approached the car, peering inside. The document in question, an appeal, disputes the timing of the encounter as described by the state. The appeal claims that Hobbs pointed his gun at Bazony first not the other way around. Each testified in court that the other had aimed their weapons first. According to the appeal, the timing was critical to the conviction. Keep in mind that Hobbs wasn't dressed in a uniform and wasn't in a marked vehicle. The request was denied and Bazony was sentenced to the absolute minimum by the court.

This new document is a version of the previously-cited court filing, but this one includes the court's footnotes. These notes include one very important fact which was not included in the previous version that we had. The case rested on a very simple but hard to determine fact: which of the two men, Hobbs or Bazony, had drawn their weapon first.

As noted above, the previous version of this document, lacking the court's comments, had indicated a "he said, she said" kind of situation, as both men testified that the other had pulled his weapon first. However, the court notes reveal something else. Footnote number 5 states, "Hobbs denied taking out his sidearm at this time. Another member of the surveillance team reported that Hobbs admitted to taking his sidearm out when he lay down, but this statement was not introduced as evidence."

This is important because, according to the document, while Hobbs was warned of Bazony's approach, the surveillance team had not seen the weapon. Hobbs himself, again, according to the court record, claims he did not draw his weapon until he saw Bazony's weapon. This excluded testimony changes the nature of this case substantially, especially given that Bazony went to prison as a result. It also casts further doubt on Hobbs in general, beyond that which we already managed to discover through cursory Google searches (a technique apparently unknown to local reporters, or at least conveniently forgotten when police shootings occur).

These questionable incidents included a case where Hobbs ran over and killed a pedestrian at night and yet was not administered a DUI test. Court record searches revealed at least one lawsuit that led to a payout by Hobbs to the plaintiff in the amount of $6328.10. Hobbs was defended by the city in that case, leaving the impression that this was work-related.

But since the media has found itself incapable of challenging the myth of policing, or the powerful police unions that perpetuate it, it frees the cops up to trot out their fallen comrades when politically expedient to do so. Long time regular columnist for the Republic, EJ Montini ran an anonymous letter from a cop in his March 27th column. The officer denounced city officials playing politics with officers' lives.

When an officer is killed in the line of duty you have a congregation of politicians lined up saying how sad they are. A week later it is business as usual -- attacking public safety. What a bunch of hypocrites. I would rather them stay away. Every cop knows they don't mean it.

Nevertheless, PLEA itself is quick to drag out the corpses of cops like Hobbs when they think it will score them points.  In an editorial on its own website entitled, "City wants Cuts While Violence Increases" (sic), the union invokes his name while warning of the consequences of a "dangerously understaffed and demoralized police force."  PLEA's position paper itself trots out Hobbs' corpse in its conclusion, a paragraph that uses the word "sacrifice" three times in the last two sentences.

While Valley cops may be confused about when it's appropriate to use a dead cop for political purposes, one thing they're sure of is that the residents of Greater Phoenix had better watch out. Take warning. The cops are looking out for number one this time around. Even your dinner isn't safe, and if they have to kill you in order to prove their point -- that they deserve a raise despite the fact that wages over all in Arizona for workers are still down since the recession -- then they will.

Maybe now's a good time to listen to Mesa Chief Milstead. Continuing his comments about policing, violence and risk in another interview, he put it this way: "We worry about putting people in the line of fire and in danger, but it is what we signed up for." Enough with the pity party, PPD. Stop complaining and take your hits like the tough, duty-bound toughies you claim to be. And most of all, stop killing us.


Read more Down and Drought coverage of Phoenix Police and the Major Offenders Bureau.