PHOENIX — Phoenix police discriminate against Black, Hispanic and Native American people, unlawfully detain homeless people and use excessive force, including unjustified deadly force, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday.
“The Department of Justice is not interested in making local police departments and the communities they serve better,” Kriplean said. “This action demonstrates that they are only interested in removing control of local police from the communities that they serve through consent decrees.” Black people in the city are over 3.5 times more likely than white people, for example, to be cited or arrested for not signaling before turning, the report says. Hispanic drivers are more than 50% more likely than white drivers to be cited or arrested for speeding near school zone cameras. And Native American people were more than 44 times more likely than white people — on a per capita basis — to be cited or arrested for possessing and consuming alcohol.
Clarke criticized the city for “over-policing” homeless people, saying officers frequently arrest homeless people without reasonable suspicion that they committed a crime. More than a third of the Phoenix Police Department’s misdemeanor arrests and citations were of homeless people, the report says. Similar DOJ investigations, in Albuquerque, Baltimore and elsewhere, have found systemic problems related to excessive force and civil rights violations, some resulting in costly consent decrees that have lasted for years.
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