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?

Tempe, Scottsdale arrest blacks at a higher rate than the Ferguson PD

Truly shocking numbers were released today in a USA Today report detailing the massive disparities in arrest rates for blacks compared to, well, everyone else. In the Valley, Tempe and Scottsdale police stood out for particular distinction, with starkly high figures per capita.

The USA Today analysis of arrest records for police departments across the country found that almost 1600 police agencies nationwide took blacks into custody at rates above those in Ferguson, Missouri, the city well-known now for aggressive and racist policing following the shooting of Michael Brown and the turmoil that resulted.

According the the article, blacks were "more likely than others to be arrested in almost every city for almost every type of crime. Nationwide, black people are arrested at higher rates for crimes as serious as murder and assault, and as minor as loitering and marijuana possession." If you're not black, you're more likely to escape arrest for comparable crimes. Notably, the data, which came from the FBI, does not track arrests of Latinos, which in the Southwest is a major shortcoming. That number would be very good to have.

Of particular note, two Valley police agencies, Tempe and Scottsdale, not only have arrest rates for blacks higher than Ferguson, but take blacks into custody at more than double (triple in the case of Scottsdale) that which has set the Missouri city on fire with accusations of police harassment of a black population by white police agency.

Source: USA TODAY

Tempe, this year found itself embroiled in controversy when ASU professor Dr. Ore, who is black, was stopped off campus by a white university cop. The stop, which many viewed as unnecessary, aggressive and racially-motivated, set off a media firestorm and enraged many residents of the college town, some of whom took their anger to a Tempe city council candidates forum, disrupting the event.

Tempe, which likes to brand itself as a progressive city despite its history as a Klan bastion, will have a hard time making the case that these numbers don't indicate a serious problem for a police force that many see as out of control. While Ferguson's arrest rate for blacks was 186.1 (versus 66 for whites) out of a thousand, Tempe's came in at a staggering 405.5! Anglos, on the other hand, got arrested at a rate of 120 per 1000 in Tempe, still almost twice that of Ferguson but over a third less frequently than blacks. If you're black, Tempe PD has its eyes on you.

Tempe police have come under scrutiny lately as a result of a program called "Safe and Sober", which involves upwards of 20 police agencies flooding downtown with officers, making thousands of stops of all kinds, ostensibly to battle alcohol consumption. Locals report harassment and profiling.

The city hasn't released final numbers on this years' program (which has run for two years now) -- including data on the race of those people that were stopped -- but numbers like those compiled by USA Today lend support to suspicions that racial bias is very likely at work. Back of the envelop calculations by local activists put the rate of stops during the three weeks that "Safe and Sober" runs in Tempe at per capita levels comparable to NYC's highly controversial "Stop and Frisk" program, which was ruled racially biased this year.

Source: STATE PRESS

The City of Tempe has suffered a series of public black eyes around the issue of policing in the last couple years. In 2013, during the first year of "Safe and Sober," local cops gunned down Austin Del Castillo in broad daylight in downtown Tempe, sending bullets into a nearby restaurant.  Before that, in May of the same year, Tempe police opened fire on a man who had broken into the wine cellar of a local restaurant downtown. Then there was the Dr. Ore incident. In July, Tempe police were caught on video beating a homeless man, again on Mill Avenue downtown. An internal review by the police of the police ruled the violence justified, although they admitted that proper procedure wasn't followed when officers failed to file the use of force paperwork that should accompany such incidents. Tempe has also raised concerns by failure to come clean on their possession and use of a StingRay cell phone spy device and whether and how that is being used to snoop on residents.

Critics of the Ferguson PD point to giant disparities between the percentage of cops who are white on the force compared to the general population. A recent NY Times article. "The Race Gap in America’s Police Departments", highlighted these discrepancies in several departments nationwide, including half a dozen in Arizona. The study didn't give stats for Tempe, but it did show clearly that whites were over-represented in all the Valley departments surveyed, sometimes skewing (in the case of the Phoenix Police Department) as much as 35% more white than the local population they police. The Phoenix PD, by the way, ranked in the USA TODAY study at 220.5 for blacks, and 77.6 for everyone else. Incidentally, the city with the smallest gap between population and police, demographically, was Scottsdale. But that was only because Scottsdale is 84% white. There isn't much room to go higher than that, although SPD does manage to still put 6% more whites on their force than the general population.

Changing the racial makeup of the police force won't solve the problem of police brutality and profiling, but the fact that they are so out of whack with the general population again gives cause to believe, combined with those radically skewed arrest stats, that profiling is probably going on. And a lot of it.

We asked TPD if use of force paperwork was 

filed in the above case and they never replied

This data also shows how little things have changed in the Valley. Tempe and Scottsdale, both historically "sundown towns" where nonwhites were strongly encouraged, to put it mildly, to make themselves scarce when nightfall came, obviously still put a heavy emphasis on the policing of blacks within city limits. As troubling as Tempe's outrageous data is, Scottsdale's is even more disturbing. It wasn't that long ago that scandal wracked the SPD when it came out that some officers were enforcing what they called a "no n*gger zone" in the wealthier parts of a generally very well-off city. These stats show an inexcusable gulf between the policing that blacks and everybody else gets in Scottsdale.

Either way, if you're black in Scottsdale and Tempe you have good reason to worry about the police. Just like Dr. Ore, you may very well find yourself attracting the special attention of local law enforcement, for no other reason than your skin color. Perhaps data like this is the reason why Tempe has been so reluctant to release the racial breakdown of the "Safe and Sober" stops. But that's all the more reason why they should.

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.

TEMPE PD OFFERED PROTECTION TO FRAT AT CENTER OF RACIST MLK PARTY

The president of ASU'S expelled Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity tweeted that the chapter had been offered escorts by the Tempe police. The fraternity's president Syed "Shafqat" Huq posted on his twitter account, which is now private, on Thursday that he had been contacted by a sergeant from the Tempe police who offered police escorts to protect fraternity members.  It's unclear what threat the Tempe police believe the TKE frat boys are facing, but Huq laughs off their proposal in his tweet.

It's interesting to note that while the Tempe police regularly coordinate with the FBI to spy on activists, and place department critics on "hazard" watch lists, they are willing to provide police protection to a fraternity with a history of racism and violence. Nor is this the first time the police have come to the aid of ASU's fraternities during a racist outburst. As noted in our previous piece on the violent, racist, and sexist frat culture at ASU, the gangster themed MLK party hosted by TKE members has a historical precedent in the racist actions of campus frats of the past.

As Michael Lacey reported in his Phoenix New Times article on the April 1989 race riot on frat row, the frats faced no consequences from their 500 strong attack on four black students, whom drunk Greeks and party-goers surrounded and pilloried with anti-black racist epithets, in what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

Indeed it was two of the attacked black students who were taken in handcuffs to the police station, and one of the men detained by the police recalled the cruelty of police officers during his detention, reporting that his "handcuffs were so tight that he was in pain as he sat in the back of the squad car."  And that "[a]s he shifted positions, he remembered an officer warning him that if he moved again, the cuffs would be tightened until tears came to his eyes."  Lacey also documented the efforts of ASU police to downplay any racist elements of the attack, as the national press cooperated by not reporting on the scale of the attack and the racism of the students present.

The offer of police protection for TKE members is not the only troubling news since the expulsion of the ASU chapter, as more racist skeletons in the TKE closet emerged despite the national organization's attempt at sanitizing their image.  After Arizona State University announced on Thursday that the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity would be expelled from campus, the national TKE fraternity announced its support for the ASU chapter. The national body followed the announcement of expulsion by putting the frat on internal probation, placing the blame for the party on 16 of the chapter's 125 members, and offering to provide a "a professional program on cultural diversity" or something.

The tone of the national TKE is at odds with the efforts of the supporters of the ASU chapter, who created a "SAVE Arizona State University Tau Kappa Epsilon" to rally support for the troubled chapter.  However, the support did not arrive in the way that the backers might have hoped.  A Facebook user named  Micheal King, who claimed to be a TKE alumni, posted a racist frat party photo (see below) of two men in a stereotypical gangster attire, and in black face, with the following text:

Full support on the issues of freedom of speech and expressing controversial opinions and ideas. Save our consititutional rights. here’s a pics from 1990 at Kent state univ. when TKE was allowed to express our rights. if the university or TKE nationals causes you problems, ,seek independent legal advise.

More throwback, 1990, Who is that dark skinned brother on the left ? . Kent State , TKE fraternity party, back when we were allowed to express ourselves. damn, times have changed for the worse. [sic]

The post has since been removed from the Facebook page.  Meanwhile, the official message from the exclusive organization, that "[t]he poor taste and acts of a few are not reflective of the whole" continued to look more and more ridiculous.  As thegloss.com writer Julia Sonenshein noted, 'TKE clicked “like”' on the black face photo. 

READ MORE COVERAGE OF ASU FRATS HERE.

Party Foul: Racist ASU frats are ruinning Tempe's party culture

Tempe frats aren't just racist.  They're also bad partiers.  And they're ruining it for everyone else.

At least no one wore blackface.  That may be the one positive thing you can say about the stupid, racist "MLK Black Party" organized by members of ASU's Tau Kappa Epsilon.  Saved by low standards?

Thankfully not.  The university stepped in, suspending the organization for a second time in just over a year after pics from the party surfaced documenting white celebrants donning sports jerseys, tossing up gang signs and drinking out of watermelons.  By the way, the first suspension came after a gang of about 20 TKE members invaded an apartment complex and assaulted a black associate of another fraternity, an attack that certainly takes on a different hue in light of recent events.  Local civil rights advocates have issued a series of demands and threatened a boycott.

Photo via Phoenix New Times

This newest incident comes as the latest in a long line of frats behaving badly in Tempe.  Recent incidents include the near-immolation of an underage female party-goer, the aforementioned assault, a gun fight, the ditching of frat brother, intoxicated and near death, at a local emergency room with a post-it note stuck to him.  Etc, etc.

Reacting to the frat chaos, the city and police department vowed to respond.  "These young individuals as well as the property owners, they have to respect the right of our community and that is what we are trying to do," said Chief Ryff at the time.  The city set about making a plan to crack down, not just on trouble-making frats, but on the community in general.

This plan manifested at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, under a program called Getting Arizona Involved in Neighborhoods (GAIN).  Hundreds of cops invaded and occupied the neighborhoods surrounding the university.  In Arizona's version of Stop and Frisk, thousands of police contacts were made.  Over three weekends Tempe police and Maricopa Sheriff's deputies charged almost 1400 people, certainly very few of whom were fratboys.

READ MORE ABOUT TEMPE'S CRACKDOWN HERE

In particular, the inclusion of the MCSO in the program raised serious questions, given their terrible record of profiling Latinos and other people of color.  Students and residents in the neighborhoods around ASU resisted the police invasion in a variety of ways, including a popular Twitter campaign with the hashtag #shotsforjoe, which accompanied pictures of determined youthful partiers mocking Sheriff Joe Arpaio, drinks in hand, in defiance of the crackdown on good times.  Residents reached out to the media to explain their side of the story and to denounce the racism of the TPD and MCSO.

The crackdown was abruptly cut short after police gunned down a Tempe resident in broad daylight in the heart of downtown Tempe.  Witnesses contradicted the police story, but one this is for sure: the city had declared the area a police state, announcing a "zero tolerance policy" for any disorder.

There is an instinctual sense that ASU, still a regular top ranker in Playboy's top party schools list, has always been a place where partying was a part of life and that this was precisely what differentiated that part of the city from the quieter white bread suburban neighborhoods in the southern part of the city.  The areas around the school have always boasted a raucous culture of house parties and drunken walks home from the bar.  People live in downtown for a reason and accept and enjoy a certain degree of chaos.

But this traditionally more wild lifestyle has increasingly come into conflict with the city's plans for yuppification, upscalification and conventionification of downtown.  Recently the city changed it's standards for noise ordinances and residential codes in an attempt to homogenize the city.  Police can now act immediately to shut down loud parties whereas before they were required to give a warning.

As the city plans for a future of middle class USA basketball tourists and insurance salesmen, the need to domesticate downtown has become more pressing, and fratboy antics have given them the excuse they need.  Speaking to the Republic of the basketball deal, Susan Eastridge, CEO of Concord Eastridge, Inc., said, “In a lot of ways, we think this will invite even more development to happen in Tempe."  The expansion of commerce downtown demands order.

READ MORE ABOUT TEMPE'S PLAN TO DOMESTICATE DOWNTOWN

So it was no surprise that the police trotted out frat violence as their excuse for their crackdown.  The city recently released it's own self-tabulated results of the crackdown, citing reduced noise violations and lower incidents of muggings as proof that they had achieved their objective.  But at the outset the city had singled out in particular the frat violence and sexual assaults as justifications for their increased policing of what they deem the "loud party corridor."

Frat row, closed for business

Therefore, it's worth noting then that the city's own numbers have shown that they have completely failed in this objective.  Neither reports of aggravated nor sexual assaults declined in the period of increased policing, which cost nearly $150,000 (most of which was covered by the Feds) and which padded officers bank accounts with plenty of overtime before the holiday season.

But how does this relate to a bunch of white fratboys throwing a racist party?  Because despite what the city says, downtown Tempe is a place that welcomes parties, but the frats are really bad at partying.  They are self-centered and disconnected from reality in ways that are very troubling.  The failure to understand how their actions would be viewed and the message it would send is indeed deeply troubling.  And this violence, racism and general poor form is providing an excuse for the police to crackdown on everyone else.

Many people who are aware of Arizona's history as a segregationist state, of the battles over the MLK holiday, and the infamous racist rant of former governor Evan Mecham might not be surprised by whites acting badly.  Yet some people are wondering, "shouldn't these kids have known better?"  It turns out Tempe and ASU has its own troubled history.  Come time travel with me.

On April 14, 1989, a white mob surrounded four black students leaving a party on the now-bulldozed fraternity row.  In what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, 500 fratboys and other whites surrounded the men, spat on them and taunted them with racial epithets.  When it turned violent the cops broke it up, macing the crowd and arresting two of the black men, who were taken to the station in handcuffs.  The local press ignored the racist riot until a week later when protesters marched and blocked the Memorial Union on campus.  Among their demands, that all fraternities develop an anti-racism education program for their members.  Imagine that?  In 1989!

Before that, back in the day, Tempe was a Klan stronghold and a "sundown town," and many prominent members of the community -- including the mayor, city council members and civic leaders (the founder of the Tempe Rotary Club, for instance) -- boasted membership in the not so secret organization.

This included two-time mayor and perennial councilman Hugh Laird whose name graces a school and a street and who used to enjoy regaling friends and family with this touching yet eerily relevant story of racial appropriation, as detailed in the book "Memories of Old Settlers of Tempe."

'Between 1905 and 1910, the new manager of Borden's Creamery was coming from the East Coast on the train. In a letter to the present manager, who was retiring, he inquired whether he should be concerned about Indian attacks or train robbers. Several Tempeans heard about the inquiry and decided not to disappoint him.

'The evening of his arrival, he was met by several Borden officials and was driven to the creamery by horse and buggy. Borden's Creamery was located on Eighth St. just east of Rural Road. About twenty of the leading townspeople we awaiting, west of Rural and Eight St. on horseback, dressed up in feathers and war paint to "attack" the buggy. When the "attack" occurred, the officials jumped from the buggy, but the new manager grabbed the reins and started back toward town. The "Indians" followed whooping and hollering and then faded away in the vicinity of Mill Avenue. The new manager drove the buggy back to the train depot on Ash Avenue, got on the train and headed back to Phoenix.

'Other Borden officials had a "devil" of a time trying to persuade him to return and assume his duties. He didn't think the prank was funny! I know this story because my grandfather, Hugh Laird, was one of the "Indians" and he delighted to tell it every Christmas.'

It seems to me that this isn't just a question of not "knowing better."  Racism isn't just about the maintenance of a white supremacist system, although it clearly is that.  And this kind of thing isn't just a social faux pas.  As if the real crime is that the thoughts were expressed publicly.  It's obvious why the caricature of blackness, of the rapper or the sports star or the drug dealer, would appeal to a bunch of workaholic repressed white kids who were likely raised in the suburbs by parents exactly the same as them. Hell, there's not much that is appealing about the repressed white protestant pressed-suit work-worshipping 9-5 life they're all sadly destined to lead.

Whites in the US, experiencing the constant self-repression of Protestantism and the work ethic, have a long history of envying idealized versions of the lives of others.  In terms of white fantasies, you can draw a line from the Noble Savage to the hip hop artist.  The white New Ager wants the spirituality without the poverty of the reservation.  The white fratboy wants the rap swagger without the police attention and prison time.

But these fratboys are playing black without the consequences.  Paul Mooney famously remarked on this historical tendency.  These kids want to play black without the disadvantages.   To inhabit that identity when its convenient.  That's a big part of why it's particularly offensive to see a bunch of privileged rich white kids doing this kind of racist shit.

On a Tempe neighborhood forum where complaints about local cops, fratboys and racism are common, one black former frat member described his experience this way, 

The privileged white kids of these fraternities will engage in all the post-racial backslapping in the world. They say "nigga" When it comes up in rap songs, so they get to thinking they "get it"--that it's all for fun, that "only lazy hood [black] people are niggas...you know what I mean right bro? You're different."

He continued: 'These kids probably say things like "but, God, racism ended like 40 years ago, right?"'

Another problem with the behavior of the frats in the neighborhood is that the repercussions for their actions generally land squarely on other people.  Which, in the case of the police response they invite, means poor, working class people, and people of color in particular.  That is, people with a lot less power and resources than fratboys have and who don't have rich daddies with season football passes and exclusive organizations to back them up.  

Fratboys can play black all night in the apartments their parents pay for, but when they're driving home in that shiny new graduation present they fly under the cops' radar.  Their whiteness protects them.  But they have brought upon the whole neighborhood a police crackdown from which they themselves are largely immune, which is painfully ironic coming from an exclusive club of resume-builders constantly crowing about the self-described community "philanthropy" they engage in.  Check out the Facebook page of any one of these organizations.  It's nothing but photo ops of well-off mostly white kids masturbating themselves for resume points while doing what should be considered normal, human behavior.  As the old saying goes, if you're who they've sent to save us, we don't want to be saved.  Or, "you're a little short for a stormtrooper."

In addition to denouncing their racist brothers, which they should do immediately, ASU Greeks also need to be better partiers.  Most people who live in the neighborhoods around the university support parties -- welcome them, in fact.  Not just because they're fun but also because they help push back against the developers and city managers who dream of raising rents, filling the neighborhood with condos, driving fun-loving people out, and squashing out all good times that aren't bought and paid for in a bar or restaurant on Mill Avenue.  So throwing these godawful racist or violent parties puts everyone who likes parties in an awkward position.

If there's hope for defending a rebellious Tempe where fun can still happen, it's in refusing to be cowed in the neighborhoods by buzzkillers in blue (who are sometimes actual killers) and pencil-necked urban planners.  But the frats' shitty, racist, sexist and idiotic behavior has become just another excuse for the ongoing crackdown on good times in the neighborhood.  The frats need to get their shit together.  Dump the racism first and foremost.  There are parties to be thrown and beers to be drunk.  For the common good.  And before it's too late.

DID THE FORMER PHOENIX COP UNION BOSS JUST CALL THE PPD RACIST?

Did former Phoenix Law Enforcement Association President Mark Spencer just call the Phoenix Police Department racist?  It sounds like he did.

In an interview with Channel 12 on Friday, Spencer offered his comments on what might be described as a quota-system-in-everything-but-name being developed by Chief Garcia.  In the same report, Garcia described his new system, a disturbing cross between pre-crime and the NYPD's famously racist (and recently struck down as such) "Stop and Frisk" policies, this way:

“When [officers are] not responding to calls, when they're not actually in the process of writing a report, what are they doing? Are they in those areas that are areas that are going to be – that have a history, or that we think are areas that we want to go into to stop burglaries, auto thefts, aggravated assaults. We want to be productive. We want to stop crime before it happens. Before your home gets burglarized we want to catch the burglars. Before the aggravated assaults occur, how can we stop those?”

Chief Garcia swears this is not a quota system -- merely a vision for a more "pro-active" and more productive PPD -- and that despite asking for more civilian contacts from his officers there are no hard and fast numbers that he is requiring.  Just more.

In an statement released Friday night and tagged on verbatim to the end of a story posted at Channel 5's website (like good stenographers), Garcia tried to clarify his philosophy, saying "We will continue to proactively direct our efforts towards persons committing crimes, places where crimes are committed and behaviors that lead to crime."
 
The chief gives us no indication how he expects officers to know which neighborhoods are the right ones to target for increased harassment, or which people are the right ones to stop arbitrarily.  Nor does he explain how officers are supposed to stop crime before it happens.  After all, our criminal system, at least on paper, is based on people being accused of committing crimes and then having evidence brought against them, not precognition. 

So there's good reason for skepticism.  Valley residents should consider the experience of NY City with Stop and Frisk when they hear this kind of talk.  For over a year New York police officer Adrian Schoolcraft secretly recorded his bosses as they twisted themselves into contortions to say without explicitly stating that NYPD expected officers to create contacts, stops and arrests in order to meet productivity expectations under Stop and Frisk.  Quotas, essentially, though no one would speak the offending word.  This led to the obvious: manipulated stops, searches and arrests that naturally fell disproportionately on young people of color.  Because it turns out that cops are racist.  I know this news will shock some of you.

Read more of Down and Drought's coverage of Valley police

In fact, Tempe got a preview of what these kinds of policies might look like in the Valley during the city's short-lived and ill-fated "Safe & Sober" campaign.  Thousands of police flooded neighborhoods surrounding the university and made thousands of contacts over several weekends.  Per capita those stops rivaled those of Stop and Frisk.  After four weekends the city abruptly cancelled the effort after facing student and neighborhood resistance, and the "zero tolerance" shooting of Austin Del Castillo in broad daylight on Mill Avenue on the first morning of phase two of the operation.  Tempe hasn't released the racial breakdown of their stops, but it wouldn't be surprising at all if these numbers also skewed, just like Stop and Frisk, disproportionately against youth of color.

It wouldn't be a surprise, namely, because of the history of local police forces.  People may remember the infamous "no n***er zone" that Scottsdale cops enforced up by McCormick Ranch.  Or the racial profiling by DPS as documented by the ACLU, in which the state cops stopped and searched people of color more frequently than whites -- even though whites were more likely to have contraband on them!  Or the more recent ruling against Sheriff Joe for racial profiling.  

Indeed, here at Down and Drought we ourselves have recently documented racist behavior by Phoenix police.  And, of course, there's the entire history of policing to go by.  So it wouldn't be outlandish at all to suspect that a rise in quotas à la Stop and Frisk, such as Chief Garcia seems to be proposing with his increase in officer productivity, would disproportionately target blacks, Latinos and indigenous people, especially youth.

Which brings us back to Mark Spencer.  Make no mistake, Spencer is a former union boss for the cops, so his main concern is the speed-up that Chief Garcia is trying to impose on officers, not the defense of civil rights.  Forcing cops to do more stops and document their activity in terms of productivity means more work for them, and it's the union's job to push back on that.  He'll use whatever excuses he has available towards that end.

But Spencer did say something very important that should be remembered.  He called the Phoenix Police Department and its officers racist.

“When you remove discretion from an officer and you mandate enforcement action our minority community partners seem to pay a higher price for that."

Spencer seems to be saying that if his former buddies are bored and forced to make busy work, that they're going to go pick on minorities to make their numbers.  As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

EVERYTHING TO G.A.I.N.: TEMPE'S TWO-PRONGED COUNTER-INSURGENCY STRATEGY IN DOWNTOWN

Guest contributor M.Arginal analyzes the ongoing and intensifying crackdown on downtown Tempe and how it fits into Tempe's overall development objectives.

File under: things that only happen in a room full of scared middle class white people.  Local cops struck their best gang member/rapper poses Monday night, complete with crossed arms and fake gang signs, at a "community" meeting boosting the city's G.A.I.N. block parties.  Meanwhile, about a hundred Tempe residents, members of local crime watches and various neighborhood groups hooted, hollered and foamed at the mouth hoping to win high profile visits to their hyper-local hootenannies by heavily-militarized local gang units and SWAT teams.  You know, fun for the whole family?

The Tempe PD raffled them off to lucky winners -- locals who have announced their plans to host local police-worshiping "get to know your neighbors" parties on October 26th.  This is the essence of the G.A.I.N. initiative, one prong of the city's counter-insurgency attack on the neighborhoods surrounding Tempe.  Masquerading as a "get to know your neighbor" block party, these function instead as propaganda ops for the cops and snitch farms to build support for the rapidly increasing development transforming Tempe.

This happens at the same time that the TPD Chief Ryff and notorious racial profiler Joe Arpaio announced MCSO participation in the fourth week of the other prong of the counter-insurgency strategy -- the boots on the ground swarming of the downtown Tempe with hundreds of cops enforcing petty alcohol crimes and setting up DUI sweeps.  Dubbed "Operation Safe and Sober", residents reported intersections blocked off by patrol cars and officers toting AR15s down neighborhood streets

The record-setting invasion, which Tempe officials claim is a response to "rowdyism", resulted over the last three weeks in almost 6000 police contacts and nearly 1400 arrests.  Police also broke up 129 parties, which they describe as "loud", although from what we're hearing from locals, the definition of "loud" and "party" has been stretched almost to the breaking point.  On a local neighborhood forum, one resident reported being raided by police exercising their new anti-party powers, although she asserted that her "party" consisted of only half a dozen people listening to music.  Other residents reported being hassled walking to the convenience store and home from the bar.

Tempe over the last year has been dealing with some high profile frat violence and fraternity-related partying.  In what some residents are now calling the "frat wars," frats and frat members have engaged in a series of assaults, general intimidation and reckless behavior in the neighborhood.  On April 28, a frat party descended into violence as shots were fired by an armed crew trying to settle a score following a fight earlier in the night.  In March two women were seriously burned at a frat party after a frat member threw alcohol in a fire pit.  Just two weekends ago, despite the Tempe police crackdown, two rival frats battled it out at the new District Apartment complex, leaving one fratboy beaten severely in a elevator.  This comes on the heels of a variety of other frat insanity, including alcohol related incidents that left one person dead and another nearly so.

ASU kicked the frats off campus last year, forcing them out into the neighborhoods, where they now rent homes and take over entire apartment complexes.  And this, in fact is the source of the problem.  A bunch of spoiled brat white kids, with powerful alumni parents, have colonized the neighborhoods surrounding the university, sowing entitled chaos wherever they go.  Interestingly, the frats meet every criteria for being a gang, and yet Tempe has not labeled them such, preferring instead to heap repression on the broader community, sending an invading force into neighborhoods long known for hosting non-frat house parties and dissident culture.  Are they too white and middle class to be considered a gang?

The scope of the Tempe's police response really comes into focus when taken in the context of Tempe's population of 160,000 people.  Six thousand contacts -- which could each involve more than one person --  means a significant portion of the population came into contact with the police, with 25% of them getting arrested as a result.  The sheer scale of the operation, and it's reliance on police contact, evokes comparisons to New York City's notoriously racist Stop & Frisk policy.  Although no numbers have been released detailing the racial breakdown of these stops, the TPD's uneven history in this regard and the newly announced participation of Joe's posse set off alarm bells.

It's worth remembering that in 2005 the Tempe Police were singled out by the city itself after years of criticism for its lack of diversity and for reflecting a culture of the "good ol' boy network."  Now throw on top of that the ongoing activities of the MCSO, recently found guilty by the Feds of racial profiling Latinos and you get the distinct feeling that walking down the street next weekend in Tempe is going to be a potentially dangerous experience if you happen to be a youth of color.

Indeed, things took a surreal "back to the future" turn Monday night when Tempe officers at the front of the room began mimicking rappers and gang members, tossing up mock gang signs, gesticulating wildly and striking exaggerated poses -- to the wild applause of the overwhelmingly white audience -- while announcing the winners of the G.A.I.N. gang unit raffle. It seemed buried in the ancient past as far as the G.A.I.N.-wannabes are concerned, but readers may remember the infamous "rap ticket" scandal, in which Chief Ryff was forced to apologize after Tempe Sgt. Chuck Schoville made two black men rap about littering on camera in order to get out of a ticket. 

Monday's meeting featured three main parts.  A couple "crime prevention" officers (begging the question of what the rest of TPD does) did an awkward presentation on how to keep from getting robbed.  Locking your doors and having small dogs featured prominently, but aside from the bizarre raffle, the meat and potatoes was a presentation about Tempe's new 311 snitch app.  Like Mesa's recently-debuted app, this downloadable program allows residents to anonymously (make sure to turn on the GPS location feature, though!) rat on neighbors and other anti-social elements.  Upload pictures of offenders and unsightly street art straight from your phone.  You, too can become part of the corporatization and blandification process in Tempe!  Every resident a gentrifying and a cop!

Which gets us to the heart of what is happening in Tempe: counter-insurgency.  As an American strategy, counter-insurgency has its roots in Vietnam and the period following the social upheavals of the 60's and 70's.  It returned in the 80's with the drug war as the police response to the crack epidemic and most recently, the US military's experience trying to dominate and pacify Iraq and Afghanistan.  The cross-pollination of US police forces with the military during the war of terror is well-documented, not just in terms of cross-training but also as a result of recruitment and the fact that many officers serve in reserve and national guard units.

Counter-insurgency relies on two main strategies.  First, disobedients must be isolated and attacked with state violence and coercion.  Secondly, bases of support for police need to be set up in the community.  With the ongoing police invasion of Tempe, ostensibly to crack down on partying, we have the first element.  With the G.A.I.N. parties, we have the second.

Over the last couple of years Tempe has seen a rebirth of its downtown development dreams.  Fueled by major tax-breaks (see also this) and a return (for now) of the housing boom, one large project after another has been announced downtown, from the 600 million dollar State Farm Insurance complex by the lake to the large corporate complex planned for Mill and University to the expanded and privatized high-end student housing (complete with lazy river -- only for sober use, naturally!), ASU and large development corporations have rediscovered their appetite for eating up the neighborhoods surrounding the university.  And, as we know from Iraq, for business to thrive, the population must be pacified.

Here's how the G.A.I.N. parties serve as the second prong of Tempe's counter-insurgency project.  First of all, the city needs to build a base of support within the community.  That means it needs to build direct support for the police and it has to get people together who are willing to work with them, and to then get those people talking to each other.  Remember the raffle?  Win a SWAT team appearance at your party!  Win a gang task force unit for your party!  Win a K9 unit for your party!  Indeed, personal appearances of various top cops were also promised.  The chief himself might come to your party, along with various commanders.

Trust me, nothing highlights the unique experience middle class whites have with police -- and their complete ignorance of that uniqueness -- than a room full of a hundred frothing white people cheering for a SWAT team to come to their bloc party.  The competition was fierce and palpable.  And the irony that the appearance of the cops at their city-sanctioned parties would look nothing like their appearance later in the night at non-official parties was completely lost on them.  And here's another interesting thing.  Watch Tempe's own promotional video for G.A.I.N.  Notice any cops?  It's presented as an entirely feel-good, neighborhood-oriented family affair, not a ravenous, authoritarian quasi-fascist open-air recruitment office.

Note in particular the appearance of Councilman Corey Woods.  Woods is happy to put himself out there as an enthusiastic advocate for G.A.I.N.  Indeed, Woods, Tempe's first black councilman, recently hosted a discussion at the Tempe Historical Museum on the African-American experience in Tempe, which focused in no small part on discrimination and life in segregated Arizona.  And as a candidate, Woods denounced previous threats from Arpaio to do patrols in Tempe, calling them "an exercise in chest-thumping and not an appropriate use of power."  Now, however, Woods has changed his tune, telling Channel 3 News that he now supports Arpaio's participation in the crackdown in Tempe saying, "The managing of the problem cannot fall solely on Tempe."

While these block parties pretend to be about getting neighbors out to meet each other as a form of crime prevention, they are very much about integrating that into the police structure.  So on one hand these police are engaging in a PR operation for themselves, but they are also actively recruiting snitches in the neighborhoods and gathering like-minded people (and dupes) together.  Many of these people think of themselves as community leaders (indeed, the cops referred to them as such at Monday's meeting), and serve on various neighborhood boards and governing bodies.

These willing and/or unknowing recruits will serve as the eyes and ears of the police on the ground, directing them towards people deemed disobedient or anti-social (not white, poor, counter-cultural, etc).  Loud music, unkempt front lawns, a rebellious attitude or a general nonconformism with the revitalized corporate face of downtown will get you singled out and squashed.  The G.A.I.N.ers will act like a collective all-seeing Eye of Sauron, staring down on the community from the Tempe Municipal Jumbotron between the two towers at W6, once dead but now reborn as the guardian of Tempe's new five year plan.

We've already reported on Tempe's plan for increased enforcement of code violations.  These attacks need to be seen together for what they are, an attempt to corporatize, domesticate and lame-ify downtown in the service of developers and the corporate university.  If they had their way, the city would bulldoze these neighborhoods tomorrow (and in a real sense they already are!) and replace them with high rises full of insurance agents, South Tempe style homes populated by the zoned out middle class, bars full of college well-discplined, high-spending sports fans, and white bread university students safely contained in their luxury condos and responsibly floating down the lazy river of life towards their bachelors degrees and mommy and daddy's approval.

If this isn't the fate that residents have in mind, time to act is running out, but it must involve a rejection of the faux community of the Tempe police and the construction of a real one in its place.  One with a tolerance for the kind of disobedience and raucousness that comes with life in a college town, or just life in general.  Lately some residents have been overheard, maybe only half-jokingly, fantasizing about the secession of South Tempe from downtown.  The sense is that people moved into these neighborhoods many years ago for a reason, and that if South Tempe is the future of downtown, then they want no part of it.

The recession gave everyone a brief reprieve, when the dead towers where W6 now stands stood like a skeletal reminder, a warning of just how close the neighborhoods came to obliteration.  The towers marked the spot where the beast was slain, or so many people thought. Judging by the way those South Tempe residents behaved in the G.A.I.N. meeting, not only do they have no idea what is happening up north, but they are too distracted getting pats on the head from the TPD to care.  The Tempe residents of Police Zone One may have only themselves to rely on if they want to beat back this most recent attack.