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When a homeless man questioned the authority of the Phoenix police to stop him in February 2020, officers grabbed him and kneeled his neck, but another officer shocked him with a taser. Another unpopular man said the officer dumped his belongings and said, “You guys are trash, this is trash.” Others experiencing homelessness were regularly quoted and arrested by city officers in the early hours of the morning for “a not clearly a crime.”
These were one of the abuses allegedly by the Department of Justice last June, following a nearly three-year investigation into the city of Phoenix and its police department. The investigation was the first time a DOJ had found a pattern of violations against homeless people.
Additionally, DOJ investigators found that officers disproportionately cited people experiencing homelessness and arrested them. They accounted for 37% of all arrests at the Phoenix Police Station from 2016 to 2022, but homeless people make up less than 1% of the population. Investigators said many of these suspensions, citations and arrests were unconstitutional.
Extensive investigations found that officers used excessive force, discriminated against people of color, retaliated against protesters, and violated the rights of people with behavioral health disorders.
However, federal officials announced Wednesday that they had abandoned efforts to force the city and police to address these issues. The DOJ has closed unconstitutional investigations and withdrawn findings in five other jurisdictions, including Phoenix and Trenton, New Jersey. Beyond that, the Justice Department said it has dismissed Biden-era lawsuits against several other police departments, including Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed five years ago by police.
The DOJ said it would require cities to enter the agreement, which aim to ensure that reforms will be enacted.
“We are constantly focusing on strengthening policy, training and accountability measures to ensure the best public safety for everyone who lives, works and performs Phoenix,” the city of Phoenix said in a statement. In recent years, the city has enacted policy changes, including training employees and implementing body decorative cameras.
Legal experts told Propublica that fraudulent DOJs revealed in Phoenix should be fixed.
“We’re a great fan of our lives,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former deputy attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Office.
The withdrawal of the report, along with the Supreme Court ruling last year, allows cities to arrest and cite people to sleep outside elsewhere, and allow cities and police stations to breed more to alienate homeless people, said Brooke Hill, a senior lawyer at the legal Civil Rights Commission. “They will feel they have a license to do the sweeps and otherwise make public life uncomfortable for those who are uncomfortable,” he said.
In fact, last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom urged all local governments in that state to “use powers affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court” to deal with the camp.
After DOJ launched its Phoenix investigation in August 2021, the Empowerment Fund, an Arizona advocacy group for the homeless, and the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona, sued the city and the police department to stop what its lawyers called an “unconstitutional assault.” The lawsuit accused the city of not providing housing and instead turned to the removal of the camp to clear sidewalks and other areas. “The city has made it clear that it will engage in sleep and sleep in the city’s public places and other essential living activities, leading to detention, arrest, expulsion and loss of personal impact.”
Almost a month later, the judge issued an injunction that prevented enforcement of camp bans for those who could not find shelter. The lawsuit is ongoing.
The DOJ’s June 2024 report said that even after the injunction and new city policies were implemented, city officials continued to arrest people for camps and destroy people’s belongings without notice or the opportunity to retrieve them.
Propublica discovered that Phoenix rarely preserves property seized from the camp as part of an investigation into the handling of property by homeless people in the city. From May 2023 to 2024, the city responded to 4,900 reports from the public involving the camp, according to its records. The city said workers trained to assess which items are property and which are trash found items that could be kept only at 405 at the locations they visited. Not all of these possessions require storage, as all of these possessions may have deleted them between the camp report and the city’s arrival. The city has kept its belongings 69 times.
In January 2024, the city issued its own report in anticipation of the DOJ’s claim. The city said it does not believe that police have found anything to support the accusation that “stopping the property of people experiencing homelessness.” Phoenix officials also said in the report that the city and police department “welcome additional insights” from the DOJ, but do not want to be exposed to a consent ruling.
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Lawyers and supporters said the DOJ decision did not involve a lawsuit filed by a private lawyer claiming civil rights violations against homeless people. This week’s ACLU also said it has launched seven state efforts to file a record request to hold police departments accountable.
Elizabeth Venable, a community organizer with the Empowerment Fund, said she helped DOJ connect with the HOSOUNED community in Phoenix, viewing the federal findings as a victory for the disadvantaged. Venable said the report still weighs heavily despite the withdrawal by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondy.
“No matter what Pam Bondi says, people will never forget it, especially those who have learned something that is scary,” she said.
