Phoenix police violated the rights of homeless residents and minority communities, scathing DOJ report finds

CNN — The Phoenix Police Department has for years violated the constitutional rights of residents experiencing homelessness and regularly discriminated against minority communities, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday. Justice Department investigators found that Phoenix police targets “people experiencing homelessness, retaliates against people who criticize the police, and disproportionately uses force against people with behavioral health disabilities.” The report also found that officers disproportionately enforce laws more severely against Black, Hispanic, and Native American people than against White people engaged in the same behaviors, even though “the city still claims it is ‘unaware of any credible evidence of discriminatory policing.’” The blistering report marks the end of a nearly three-year investigation into the police department that began in the wake of several high-profile incidents, including the 2020 fatal police shooting of a man in a parked car. DOJ report finds police used excessive force The Phoenix Police Department frequently and inappropriately used deadly force, the report found, and has one of the highest rates of fatal shootings in the country per year. Police target minority communities, report finds The sprawling report also found that the Phoenix Police Department disproportionately polices the city’s minority communities, including through excessive tickets and arrests for less serious offenses. The DOJ probe found that the department “cites and arrests Black, Hispanic, and Native American people for low-level traffic, drug, alcohol, and quality-of-life offenses at rates disproportionate to their shares of the population.” The offenses cover a range of misconduct, according to the report, which said as an example that the department arrested “cyclists for biking on the wrong side of the road almost eight times more in predominantly non-white neighborhoods, compared with white neighborhoods.” DOJ also said that the Phoenix Police Department lacked the ability to “adequately investigate” complaints from community members that an office acted with “overt bias.” Many complaints lodged against officers were classified by investigators at the department as “officer ‘rudeness,’” according to the report.