AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Last night, the city council in Phoenix committed to spending millions of dollars on police reform. The funding comes in response to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found many civil rights violations by police and the city in recent years. Matthew Casey, with member station KJZZ, is here with more. Hi, Matthew.
MATTHEW CASEY, BYLINE: Hi.
CHANG: OK, so what kinds of civil rights abuses by the Phoenix police are we talking about here?
CASEY: Well, the DOJ's investigation covered the years 2016 to 2022 or '23. And investigators found that Phoenix officers used excessive force, unjustified deadly force. They also found evidence of discriminatory policing based on race, violations of First Amendment rights of protesters. And there were a couple other findings that were against both the police department and the city.
CHANG: OK, so a lot of troubling findings - and these findings were made public back in June, right? You've been reporting on how they've been received in the city. What's the discussion been like?
CASEY: Well, yesterday was really important because it was the first big, public conversation by the council, and city staff acknowledged a need for change. The city has said, since Day 1, that they take the report seriously, and they spent a lot of the summer doing an analysis of their own reforms - self-imposed reforms - over the last decade-plus, versus recommendations that the DOJ made in their report. So now they're working on a plan to address the gaps, right?
The current chief - he came from Baltimore about midway through the investigation in 2022. Baltimore police have been under federal oversight for years. He told me - I believe it was last month - he told me that federal oversight would slow down the speed of change.
CHANG: Huh. Well, what do you think are the most significant new reforms the city council announced last night?
CASEY: Last night, they made permanent an expansion of the city's Homeless Solutions Office, which was set up to protect the rights of homeless people. And they created a team within the police department to make sure that the officers out on the streets are actually doing the reforms - following the new policies that are being put in place.
But overall, the changes were as wide-ranging or are as wide-ranging as the DOJ investigation was sweeping. I count dozens of items in areas like internal accountability, handling of citizen complaints and how officers treat vulnerable people like children - homeless people, people who are mentally ill. Laura Pastor, a longtime council member, said she's not too sure that all these reforms are going to be enough.
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LAURA PASTOR: And I don't know how city and police can correct all these items if we don't first acknowledge our part in the systematic injustice that our communities have experienced.
CASEY: Now, it's really important to note that the Justice Department's findings weren't just against Phoenix police.
CHANG: Right.
CASEY: They say that the city also discriminates against people with mental illness and abuses the rights of homeless people.
CHANG: Well, has the city heard back from the Justice Department on whether these reforms will even be enough for them to decide not to pursue, say, a consent decree or federal oversight of the police department?
CASEY: These reforms, all these changes, were just talked about last night, so it's going to take a little while for things to shake out. An assistant city manager who spoke at the meeting talked about upcoming meetings with the DOJ, but she did not say exactly when they are happening.
A longtime observer of police reform efforts here, who's respected by the police and by the department's critics, tells me he doesn't expect much progress between the DOJ and the city before the November election. His read is that the city is waiting to see if Donald Trump will win, and then this could all go away. But again, that's just one observer's take. As far as we know, the former president hasn't addressed police reforms here.
CHANG: That is Matthew Casey from KJZZ. Thank you, Matthew.
CASEY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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