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Phoenix police Chief ends silence over controversial viral video where police threatening Blk family

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After a police encounter sparked outrage, Phoenix residents spent hours chastising the chief


Last year, Edward Brown was skinnier, had dreadlocks and could walk, he told Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, before an officer’s hollow-point round shattered his spine after police responded to allegations of drug dealing.

“Chief, I’ve waited a long time to speak with you,” Brown said from a wheelchair in a community meeting Tuesday. He spoke in a crowd of thousands following the release of video showing a police confrontation with a family that has triggered nationwide anger and revealed deeply rooted fear in a city plagued by officer shootings.

City officials called the meeting weeks after Dravon Ames and his fiancee, Iesha Harper, said their 4-year old daughter took a doll from a bargain store. Officers, responding to reports of shoplifters, then pulled weapons and threatened to shoot them.

The incident was filmed by bystanders, some of whom rushed to protect the couple’s two children from violence. The police department said they learned of the video last week and that the officers have been assigned to desk duty during an investigation into their actions.

The Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church was at its 2,600-seat capacity for the emotionally charged meeting, the Arizona Republic reported, as families of slain citizens and people wounded by police passed around a microphone to voice their anger and frustration. Hundreds more waited outside to get inside.

Dozens of citizens, one after another, vividly recounted police encounters. Roland Harris, his hands trembling, told city officials he had to sue the department to get a police report after he said officers killed his son Jacob in January after responding to a potential armed robbery.

Ames demanded the department fire one of the officers involved to help solve what many community members described as a systemically violent force that targets the black community.

“I want to thank God for sparing my family that day,” Ames said, adding that the incident had altered their lives. The family’s comments drew a standing ovation as Williams and Mayor Kate Gallego (D) looked on from a stage.

“If there’s no action then it’s going to be pointless — if there’s no action done to those officers,” Ames told the Republic later.

The family left before officials responded, the Republic reported. Williams took the microphone two hours into the meeting.

“Real change doesn’t start with our police department. Real change starts with our community,” Williams said, drawing a fierce round of boos and jeers from the audience. She tried to clarify her remarks, saying officers were part of the community, but her comments drew more skepticism and shouts from the crowd.

“I am listening to what you say. You don’t have to believe me,” Williams said. “The proof is in what happens after this meeting. And as we’ve said, this is not the last of these meetings.”

Williams’s department recorded the most police shootings nationwide last year, the Republic reported.

Williams and Gallego had each offered public apologies, but the couple said it fell well short.

“This feels like it’s a half-apology,” Ames said during a news conference Monday. “The officers are still working. It’s just basically a slap in the face.”

On June 14, Williams said on Facebook that she opened an internal investigation into the incident once she became aware of the footage.

“This incident is not representative of the majority of Phoenix police officers who serve this city,” Williams said.

The mayor said she was “sick” over what she had seen in the video and found the incident “beyond upsetting.”

The couple, who are planning to file a $10 million lawsuit against the city and the police department, told the Republic that placing the officers on desk duty is not enough — they want the officers to be held accountable for their actions.

“Behind the desk is not good enough for me because, sooner or later, they’re going to be right back out on the streets,” Harper told the newspaper. Instead, she said, the officers “should be fired. Their job is to protect and serve.”

On May 29, Ames, Harper and their two children had gone to a Family Dollar Store, where their preschooler, Island, took a small doll without their knowledge, according to a notice of claim, which notifies a party there is an intent to file a lawsuit against them. A police patrol unit followed their car as they drove to their babysitter’s apartment complex, then an officer approached the vehicle with his gun drawn and yanked open the door, according to the claim.

The claim said that despite police department rules that require law enforcement officers to wear body cameras, the officers were not wearing them.

However, passersby recorded the encounter, showing one officer handcuffing Ames while another was shouting at Harper and the two young children.

“I’m going to put a cap in your a--,” one officer said to Ames as a second police officer, whose weapon was also drawn and pointed at Ames, walked up to the car, the video showed. “I’m going to shoot you in your f---ing face.”

Those statements were made in front of the couple’s children, who were in the rear of the vehicle, the claim said.

The first officer — who has not been named by the department — pulled Ames from the car, pushed his head to the pavement, handcuffed him and yelled that Ames had better follow orders, according to the claim. The officer threw Ames against the car, ordered him to spread his legs and “kicked him in the right leg so hard that the father collapsed,” the claim said. Then, the officer dragged him upright and punched him in the back, according to the claim.

Once Ames was handcuffed and inside the patrol car, the officers focused their attention on Harper and the children, the claim said.

"The first officer grabbed the mother and the baby around both of their necks, and tried to take the baby out of the mother’s hand,” it alleged. “He told her to put the baby on the ground, which she was unwilling to do because the baby could not walk, and the ground consisted of hot pavement.”

The claim stated that the officer tried to rip Harper’s youngest child from her arms and, after she handed the children to a bystander, he threw her into the police car face first and handcuffed her. “I could have shot you in front of your f---ing kids,” he said, according to the claim.

Although the couple were detained by the police officers, neither Ames nor Harper was arrested or ticketed, according to the Phoenix New Times.

The Phoenix Police Department told The Washington Post only that the investigation is ongoing and that the officers are still in “nonenforcement assignments,” but in a statement posted to Facebook on Saturday, authorities contested many details in the claim. The department said the incident occurred on May 27, not May 29, and began when a store manager alerted authorities of alleged shoplifters.

Officers located the vehicle at an apartment complex about a mile away and claimed the “male driver” told officers he had stolen a package of underwear, which he had thrown out the window, and that he was driving with a suspended license. Police claimed a woman in the vehicle said she believed the child stole the doll and that she heard officers tell “the driver to stop the car several times, but he didn’t.”

According to Phoenix police, no one was arrested for shoplifting because the store manager declined to prosecute.

Still, the couple said they believed their lives were in danger, and they want the officers to be punished.

“This can happen to anybody,” Ames told the Arizona Republic about his 4-year-old daughter taking a doll. “I really, really would hate to see that happen to anybody or someone dies over that, because I really feel like my family would have died over this — a Barbie doll.”
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That black police chief
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This city led the U.S. in police shootings last year. After a viral video, tensions are boiling over.

Civil rights lawsuits, fatal shootings and reports of officers’ racist Facebook posts have pushed public concerns about policing here to a breaking point.


PHOENIX — Anna Hernandez called the police for help.

Her 26-year-old brother, Alejandro, was in the throes of a drug binge — crystal meth, she said — so the family phoned in an order-of-protection violation in an attempt to get him off the street and into treatment. Police found Alejandro a few blocks away from their parents’ door. Hernandez heard their gunshots from the driveway.

Her brother, she would soon find out from a local news station’s alert, had been killed.
The police department has not released a photograph or description of the replica rifle they say Alejandro pointed at officers, she said. The family is still waiting for a copy of the police report.

“We had multiple officers stationed in front of our house,” Hernandez said. “To not get word properly — we’re still very upset about that. It’s very hurtful."

Tensions are running high in this city of infinite sunshine, as the relationship between the city’s police force and some members of the community has frayed, spinning into a mess of lawsuits, protests and angry public hearings. A daunting statistic hovers over every conversation about police here: Phoenix, a city of 1.6 million, led the country in officer-involved shootings last year, eclipsing much larger cities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.

This month, a watchdog group released a study that found racist, violent or otherwise problematic memes on the Facebook pages of 97 current and former Phoenix officers. The city also settled a lawsuit this month with a woman whose husband and 19-year-old son were killed in separate incidents, for $200,000.

But the breaking point came after a video, viewed tens of millions of times online, showed officers threatening to shoot a pregnant mother and her fiance in front of their two children outside a Family Dollar store last month. Police were responding to a complaint about shoplifting, but the family was never charged. The couple, Iesha Harper, 24, and Dravon Ames, 22, filed a $10 million civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police department.

More than 2,600 residents packed into a church for an emotional public hearing with local officials last week that included lengthy testimony from families of people who had been killed during interactions with the police. Many described fruitless efforts to get reports and other basic information from the department or said they found discrepancies in the evidence when they did.
The crowd booed Police Chief Jeri Williams when she said, "Real change doesn’t start with our police department. Real change starts with our community” — a comment she later said was misinterpreted. She said she believes police are part of the community.
“This month really brought everything to a boil,” said Viri Hernandez, the executive director of the activist group Poder in Action. “What we’ve seen is that this is the first time community members are starting to speak about it in a different way. Having the courage to film them. Having the courage to speak up.”
Years after protests in Ferguson, Mo., prompted increased public scrutiny of law enforcement, many residents say policing problems in this city of dusty sprawl seem to have taken a turn for the worse.
The shooting surge in Phoenix — police fired their weapons 44 times last year, well above the average of 21 shootings per year during the previous decade — disproportionately affected black residents. They make up 7 percent of the city’s population, but represented 20 percent of those shot by police in 2018.
Local officials have attempted to assuage public concern. The city commissioned a $150,000 study from the National Police Foundation that concluded that the spike was a “statistical yet tragic anomaly,” saying officers had faced more assaults by suspects with guns than in past years.
In an interview, Williams, who grew up in the city and has led the department since October 2016, said that she understands that the relationship between the police and the community needs repair.

"What I heard at that meeting were people who had just years and years of feeling as though they’ve not been listened to or not been heard,” she said. “It was very clear that the police department has some work to do when it comes to regaining some of the trust that we lost as a result of several incidents we’ve had over the course of a couple months.”

She declined to comment on individual cases but said she hopes to improve the quality of report writing, data collection and officers’ understanding of behavioral health issues. But Williams, who is black, said she does not believe that there are systemic racial issues in her department. She noted that police shooting incidents are down by more than half this year, to nine from about 22 at the same point last year. Violent crime is down, as well.

She said her department is investigating the officers involved in the Facebook posts and the incident in the viral video. The couple in that video has called for the officers to be fired.

Phoenix resident Edward Brown was one of the 44 people shot by Phoenix police last year, among the 22 who were not killed.

A hollow tip bullet fired from an officer’s gun in August exploded inside of him, shattering his spine. The 36-year-old now must use a wheelchair and is paralyzed from his upper stomach down, the divide between the body he can control from the body he can’t so familiar to his fiancee that she can trace the invisible line across his back.

Brown, who is black, had run away from the police, who were responding to a call about drug activity. No one disputes that he was unarmed and shot in the back, though police say he doubled-back and “swiped” at the officer’s handgun, possibly hitting its tip. Police records indicate that Brown’s DNA was not found on the officers’ gun.

Brown is charged with aggravated assault, something lawyers and activists say is common in cases in which they believe police have used excessive force.

“The officer, he took a lot from me,” said Brown, who is being represented by former Arizona attorney general Tom Horne in a $50 million lawsuit against the city. “More than he knows. I just want justice.”

Advocates say their calls for reforms in recent years have not been heeded, including the creation of a civilian review board to oversee police misconduct issues and improvement of department diversity. About 72 percent of the department is white in a city where white residents make up 43 percent of the population. Only 20 percent of officers are Latino, compared 42 percent of residents, according to Census data.

A $5.7 million body camera program is rolling out this year, but a small subset of Phoenix officers have been outfitted so far. Criminal defense lawyer Michael Kimerer said that he had seen three or four cases in which officers had not turned on their cameras during encounters with civilians.

“The credibility of the police department in terms of how they deal with their cases is not very good,” said Kimerer, who has been practicing in the city for nearly 50 years.

Lawyers, activists and other community members said the department’s disciplinary procedures — a byzantine system of internal investigations and review and appeal boards — have created a climate in which officers can act without fear of significant discipline. The Maricopa County Attorney, which reviews all of the department’s shootings, has not charged a Phoenix officer since 2011, though some from recent years are still under review. The police department said 13 officers had been disciplined internally for use-of-force incidents since 2016.

Daniel Garcia, who served as Phoenix police chief from 2012 to 2014, said he tried to focus on disciplinary procedures during his tenure but struggled with the police union, which organized a no-confidence vote against him. The five-person disciplinary review board, which is appointed by the City Council, routinely overturned his decision to fire or discipline officers, he said.

Garcia was fired after he held a news conference in which he criticized the police union and called for an extended contract, a conference that the city manager said he had forbidden.
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Britt London, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, said the union was not standing in the way of officer discipline.

“We have walked plenty of folks off this department from this union office,” he said. “We have to have a good thorough investigation and ensure we’re doing the right thing. We don’t want to be like the old cowboy movies where a crowd comes, yanks a guy out of jail and hangs him, and then they find out its the wrong guy.”

Lei Ann Stickney, a resident of nearby Mesa, said she was a lifelong donor to fraternal police organizations before her faith was shaken by stories about police use of force in recent years. The issue struck her own family when Phoenix officers found her son Casey Wright-Wells, 40, unarmed and naked in February, praising Jesus, Stickney says, in the middle of meth-induced haze.

Police in the area had found Wright-Wells, who was white, in similar states before and were able to get medical treatment for him. But this time, a team of officers tried to subdue him, and he was shocked with stun guns at least twice, police said. Stickney says she believes her son was also beaten; he had welts on his head, broken ribs, and a broken sternum. Police said he punched and spit blood at them.

He was taken to the hospital unconscious and died days later from severe brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen, she said, though it’s unclear what led to that problem.

She said she was unable to get the police report or the autopsy for the past five months, despite regular calls to the department. The report was made available to her on Wednesday, after repeated inquiries from The Washington Post.

“I believed in them; I felt like they were there to really help people,” she said of police. “But here in Arizona, the things I’m seeing, something’s wrong."
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For Mohave Valley Daily News High School Sports scores and schedules, trust News West Publishing. We keep you up-to-date on the latest high school Sports news.
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Families of men killed by Phoenix police emboldened by video


PHOENIX (AP) — Relatives of Hector Lopez, who was fatally shot by Phoenix police in May, say passing officers have laughed and made obscene gestures — a charge the department vehemently denies — during past protests seeking information.

But as the Lopez family returned to headquarters Friday for the sixth weekly protest in a row, they found a department bathed in a harsh national spotlight following the release of a videotaped encounter that showed officers aiming guns and curses at a black couple whose 4-year-old daughter took a doll from a store.

About three dozen people protested on the sidewalk, chanting slogans such as, “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!” and bearing signs and banners with messages like, “Justice 4 Hector Lopez.”

Activists said the national outcry over police behavior seen in the video has ripped open the thin curtain masking distrust, fear and resentment of law enforcement that has left scores of people in Phoenix’s black and Hispanic communities clamoring to tell their stories.

“I think people are emboldened,” said Anna Hernandez, whose brother Alejandro was killed in an April 27 confrontation with police. “People are no long afraid of sharing.”

The raw emotions were on full display earlier this week when some among the hundreds of people crowding the pews at a downtown church booed Police Chief Jeri Williams and recounted personal, painful stories of brutality. Both Williams and Mayor Kate Gallego have apologized to the community over how officers handled the videotaped encounter, and they have promised more meetings.

Police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson said Friday that department members charged with community outreach had attended past protests and the supervisor assured him that those demonstrating had not been mocked.

If protesters are treated poorly, “that conduct should be reported to the Professional Standards Bureau,” Thompson said. “We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously.”

As for complaints from family members about not receiving official reports, Thompson said police are “working to expedite the process and reduce the time it takes for public records requests.” He noted that autopsy reports are issued by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, not the police department.

The recent uproar over Phoenix police was sparked a week ago with the release of a bystander’s video of officers pointing their guns and yelling commands and expletives at Dravon Ames, 22, and his pregnant fiancee Iesha Harper, 24, who was holding their 1-year-old daughter. The officers were responding to a reported shoplifting. Ames and Harper, who are black, said their 4-year-old daughter had taken a doll without their knowledge.

The couple filed a

$10 million claim against the city alleging civil rights violations by officers. The department has not made public the race or ethnicity of the officers.

Lopez, 29, died May 9 after he was shot by police responding to a trespassing call in east downtown Phoenix who found him inside a car with a female. The department said he dropped a gun on the ground outside the vehicle but then appeared to try to retrieve it, setting off a scuffle in which he was shot.

“This hurts,” his brother Marcos Lopez told the chief, Mayor Kate Gallego and other city leaders at the Tuesday night meeting. “You know how hard it is to bury your brother? You know how hard it is to put clothes on his dead body? That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Their sister, Lesly Lopez, said the family had not received any police or autopsy reports.

Both attended the Friday afternoon protest outside headquarters.

Maria Castro, an advocate from the local rights group Puente, told officials at the Tuesday meeting that during the weekly protests “what we see is your officers walking past them and laughing. They flip off the family.”

Relatives of Alejandro Hernandez have joined the weekly protests.

“You continue to victimize the families by not providing answers,” Anna Hernandez said at the meeting. “How are we supposed to move on with grief and let them go in peace when we don’t know what happened because your officers were not wearing body cameras, supposedly, and we don’t have any reports for clarity on what exactly happened?”

Anna Hernandez said Friday the family learned of her brother’s death on the Facebook page of a local television station and the department sent two officers who spoke no Spanish to the home of her naturalized citizen parents, who speak little English.

The police first responded to the parents’ home in downtown east Phoenix because of a protection order the sister obtained to make it easier to get her brother arrested and off the streets for his own safety when he became erratic.

Anna Hernandez said her brother struggled with meth addiction and was living on the street about three days before the April 27 shooting. Police have said her 26-year-old brother was carrying a replica gun that he pointed at officers when he was shot in a canal.

The video of the encounter with the young black family comes amid an investigation by police departments in Phoenix and other cities into a database that appears to catalog thousands of bigoted or violent social media posts by active-duty and former officers.

Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams, a black woman, has moved some officers to “non-enforcement” assignments while the department looks into Facebook posts she called “embarrassing and disturbing.”
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www.fox10phoenix.com

Those defending Phoenix Police addressed City Council in light of misconduct claims

The Phoenix City Council faced a mostly police-friendly crowd Wednesday, a week after people crowded council chambers to express anger over a videotaped encounter that showed officers aiming guns and hurling profanity at a black family.
www.fox10phoenix.com www.fox10phoenix.com

Those defending Phoenix Police addressed City Council in light of misconduct claims

PHOENIX (AP) -- The Phoenix City Council faced a mostly police-friendly crowd Wednesday, a week after people crowded council chambers to express anger over a videotaped encounter that showed officers aiming guns and hurling profanity at a black family.

Nohl Rosen from Wickenburg, Arizona, said the city's leadership must "stop attacking our cops." Rosen said he doesn't believe there was anything wrong with the way officers confronted 22-year-old Dravon Ames and his 24-year-old fiancee Iesha Harper last month after a reported shoplifting. Harper is six months pregnant and was holding the couple's 1-year-old.

Ames and Harper, who have filed a $10 million claim against the city, say their 4-year-old daughter took a doll from the store without their knowledge.

Phoenix resident Paul Yoder criticized Mayor Kate Gallego for tolerating obscenities by police critics at the angry meeting last week.

The men were among a few dozen police defenders who showed up at the meeting to express their support.

City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, a strong defender of the police, said he had asked that police leadership document all conversations with management and politicians to ensure that the individual officers are not harmed by political pressures.

"No politician's career is more valuable than our police officers," DiCiccio said.

Several people at the Wednesday meeting criticized the officers' actions.

The families of numerous people shot by Phoenix police in recent months have spoken out after the video emerged.

Roland Harris told reporters earlier in the day that he wants the body cam video he believes exists of the killing of his 19-year-old son Jacob Harris by Phoenix police after an armed robbery of a fast food restaurant in January.

A Phoenix police spokesman did not immediately respond to a query about whether such video exists.

Gallego has scheduled a discussion on public safety issues at next week's council, where Police Chief Jeri Williams will offer an update on community concerns.
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cronkitenews.azpbs.org

Phoenix police supporters rally outside City Hall | Cronkite News

About 50 demonstrators rallied Wednesday to show support for police in the wake of protests over a viral video of a controversial police stop.
cronkitenews.azpbs.org cronkitenews.azpbs.org

Phoenix police supporters rally outside City Hall

PHOENIX – Demonstrators rallied Wednesday outside City Hall and later addressed the City Council to show support for police in the wake of recent outrage over a viral video of a controversial police stop for suspected shoplifting.

“It’s our turn,” organizer Nohl Rosen said Wednesday. “There is a war on police in this country. We need to support our police.”

Rally for Law Enforcement organized the event after protesters critical of police practices descended on a City Council meeting last Wednesday to oppose the approval of a city budget until measures were in place to curb police overreach. The council approved the budget after members said they would explore systems to improve police accountability.

Mayor Kate Gallego, who had apologized for the police behavior shown in the video, has called for a special council meeting July 2 to discuss creation of a civilian review board, according to azcentral.

A May 27 Phoenix police encounter with Dravon Ames, Iesha Harper and their two young daughters was captured in a video that went viral earlier this month. The video shows officers, guns drawn, confronting the couple after their 4-year-old allegedly took a doll from a dollar store, in what many called an excessive display of force.

The mood at Wednesday’s council meeting was in contrast to last week’s public drubbing of police. Councilman Sal DiCiccio, who was booed at the June 19 meeting, was applauded Wednesday as he spoke against calls for the firing of the two officers shown in the viral video.

“Never sacrifice anybody who has done the right thing,” he said as the council considered a move to resupply police with more non-lethal weapons.

When the vote came up, Andrea Max told the council, through tears, that she had received calls as a Phoenix police dispatcher threatening to kill her family.

“They don’t even know my family,” she said. “They don’t know me.”

After comments from the public, council members voted 8-2 to approve the non-lethal weapons. The group’s Facebook event page called on “the pro-police side to speak out in support of the officers who made that stop and did their jobs.”

About 50 people turned out; several cheered as two police officers walked past the group.

Natalie Reilly of Nothing But Love Notes, an organization that handwrites notes of support for members of the military and first responders, said her best friend and son are law-enforcement officers, and she wanted to let police know the community supports them.

She was concerned by the events at last week’s City Council meeting.

“If we speak over each other, we’ll never get anywhere,” Reilly said.

Black and blue American flags with a prominent blue line across the center were being handed out to supporters. The “thin blue line” flags symbolize that police lives matter, organizers said. There were two variations: the American one being handled out and simple black one with a blue line down the middle. The black coloring represents chaos, the blue represents order.

The “police lives matter” response emerged as a counterpoint to the national Black Lives Matter movement, which arose to protest a spate of police killings of black people across the country, including Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Both deaths occurred in the summer of 2014.

Some in the crowd of about 50 cheered as two police officers walked past them.

The May 27 Phoenix police encounter with Dravon Ames, Iesha Harper and their two young daughters was captured in a video that went viral earlier this month. The video shows officers, guns drawn, confronting the couple after their 4-year-old allegedly took a doll from a dollar store, in what many called an excessive display of force.

The video drew national attention and prompted an apology from Mayor Kate Gallego on Twitter in which she described the actions of the officers involved as “completely inappropriate and clearly unprofessional.”

Police Chief Jeri Williams also apologized on Facebook and promised an investigation. But at the council’s budget session last week and a community forum attended by thousands, many speakers chastised the mayor and chief. Most of the people who spoke said the video was one example of frayed relations between police and residents.

Rosen said the supporters who turned up Wednesday represent a silent majority.

There was a time when “everybody respected the police … even criminals,” he said, but that has changed in recent years.

“We shouldn’t give criminals $10 million payoffs,” he said of Ames and Harper’s plan to file a $10 million claim against the city, the precursor to a lawsuit.

Rosen started Rally for Law Enforcement in 2014 after he grew “tired of seeing law enforcement get attacked on a daily basis, not just by anti-police protests but by the (news) media as well,” according to its website.
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StringerBell said:


White city councilman standing up for his race soldiers...
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ktar.com

Phoenix councilman releases 911 calls with crude threats toward police

Councilman Sal DiCiccio released a video of profanity-laced, threatening calls fielded by Phoenix 911 operators in the wake of police brutality allegations.
ktar.com ktar.com

Phoenix councilman releases 911 calls with crude threats toward police

PHOENIX – A Phoenix City Council member released a YouTube video Monday of profanity-laced, threatening calls fielded by 911 operators in the wake of highly publicized police brutality allegations.

Councilman Sal DiCiccio, a staunch police supporter, named the unedited video(warning: extreme profanity) “Extremists Terrorize 911 Operators.”

The one-minute, 52-second video provides unredacted captions of callers berating 911 operators and referencing the videos of police incidents that have been in the headlines.

DiCiccio distributed a link to the video in a press release along with the following statement:

“These are actual threats made to our 911 operators by anti-police extremists. Listen to these tapes yourself. Remember some on the council support these individuals and their agenda. These groups are terrorizing our 911 operators. They’re posting their personal information online. They will continue to terrorize our operators, our police, their families, and our city until you decide enough is enough. Politicians are worthless. We need your help to protect our police and 911 operators. Please share this video.”
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He also uploaded the video to Twitter and Facebook with posts that included unedited quotes from the calls.

The callers appeared to be referring to the cellphone video of a police response to a shoplifting call that made national news last month.

Phoenix Police Sgt. Tommy Thompson said in an email Monday evening that around 1800 calls came into the phone center during the period after video of the incident was released.

“As a result, Phoenix Police Investigators are currently reviewing them for evidence of viable threats,” he said. “Those particular calls that are determined to contain the necessary elements of a threatening statement will be investigated.”

The controversial cellphone footage shows an officer with his gun pulled threatening a pregnant woman and using expletives while she is holding a baby. Another officer is seen handling a man roughly.

The incident reportedly was sparked by a 4-year-old girl taking a doll from a discount store on May 27.

On June 13, the family involved, Dravon Ames, Iesha Harper and two young children, filed a notice of claim laying out their plans to sue the city for $10 million.

The incident prompted Mayor Kate Gallego and Chief Jeri Williams to take part in a community meeting at which citizens voiced their frustrations with the police department.

A day later, anti-police protesters descended upon the regularly schedule City Council meeting and had their say.

At one point, the protesters shouted down DiCiccio and called him a racist when he defended the police officers.

“You are anarchists and you are out to destroy the city,” DiCiccio told demonstrators in the audience.

By the end of the month, two other multimillion-dollar claims had been filed against the city over police behavior.
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thehill.com

Phoenix police announce firings of two officers

Two Phoenix police officers have been fired over two separate incidents that both received national attention, the chief of police announced Tuesday. {mosads}Officer Christopher Meyer and…
thehill.com thehill.com

Phoenix police announce firings of two officers

Two Phoenix police officers have been fired over two separate incidents that both received national attention, the chief of police announced Tuesday.

Officer Christopher Meyer and Det. Dave Swick were both relieved of their duties, Chief Jeri Williams said Tuesday at a press conference, according to the Associated Press.

“I expect more. You deserve more,” Williams said. “Unlike other professions, we don’t have a luxury of a do-over.”

Last May, Meyer was caught on video drawing his gun and cursing at Iesha Harper and her fiancé Dravon Ames, both of whom are black. Harper was pregnant and holding a baby.

Meyer was part of a group of officers that had responded to a call about shoplifting. The couple was unaware that their four-year-old daughter had taken a doll from the store.

No one was charged in the case.

While a department disciplinary board recommended that Meyer be suspended for six weeks, Williams believed that suspension wasn't sufficient.

“In this case, a 240-hour suspension is just not sufficient to reverse the adverse effects of his actions on our department and our community,” Williams said.

Swick, meanwhile, was fired over social media posts in a separate case. A database called The Plain View Project exposed public posts from officers nationwide that seemed to be bigoted or pro-police brutality.

Williams continued: “As a resident or a person in the community, you can express yourself as a part of your First Amendment right."

"But as a public servant, we wear this badge as a symbol of our commitment to a higher standard.”
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www.azcentral.com

Couple relieved with Phoenix officer's firing, but move forward with $10M claim

Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, who were threatened at gunpoint by an officer in a viral video, react to the Phoenix police's decision to fire him.
www.azcentral.com

Couple relieved with Phoenix officer's firing, but move forward with $10M claim


The couple threatened at gunpoint by a Phoenix police officer and seen in a viral video earlier this year said Tuesday they were relieved at Chief Jeri Williams'decision to fire the officer.

“It gives us hope ... just because this will stop happening and people will know there are consequences even for officers," said Dravon Ames, the man at the center of the May 27 encounter.

The video, recorded by a bystander, shows Phoenix Officer Christopher Meyer pointing a gun at a car occupied by Ames, his pregnant fiancee Iesha Harper and their children.

The officer yelled, "You're going to get f--king shot," when Ames couldn't immediately open his vehicle's door. The officer also told the man, "I'm going to put a cap in your ass."

The couple said it all stemmed from an anonymous call to police that their daughter stole a doll from a Family Dollar store in east Phoenix they had just left. The family said it was an accident.

They were pulled over in the area of 36th and Roosevelt streets, where the encounter with Meyer occurred.

Ames said Tuesday he and Harper believe the decision to fire Meyer was the right one, but that doesn't change the lasting impact the incident has had on him and his family.

“It’s been real bad. Some nights we don’t get no sleep. Some nights we still think about what happened. It’s hard to get over that type of stuff,'' he said. "It was a very tragic and traumatizing moment, so to know that he’s been fired is some type of little relief but there’s still a lot to work on.''

Harper said she is worried her young children will remember what happened and be negatively affected by the situation.

Ames and Myers plan to move forward with a $10 million claim made against the city and the settlement conference they have scheduled for Dec. 18.

“This is partial justice for my clients," Attorney Tom Horne, a former Arizona Attorney General who is representing the couple, said. "To get full justice, the job is now mine to get it for them with compensation in the lawsuit."
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