As concerned citizens we are also participating in other initiatives to ensure
public safety and quality of life in Phoenix.
Require the Prior
This citywide coalition, which began in Summer of 2007, aimed successfully to
reduce crime on the Indian School Corridor and is now seeking the same success
city-wide. Require the Prior exists to expose misdemeanor crime criminals and
their negative impact on economic prosperity, safety, and quality of life.
Membership currently consists of 700 businesses, 25 Neighborhood Associations
representing over 25,000 households, and N.A.I.L.E.M. an anti-crime lobbying
group with 45,000 members statewide. The Citywide Coalition and its policing and
prosecution goals have been endorsed by the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the union for rank
and file police officers.
Read the Require the Prior
White Paper
Career Criminal Squad
The Major Offender Bureau (MOB) consists of several different unitsincluding: Fugitive Apprehension, Street Crimes (burglary and property crimes),
Repeat Offender Program Surveillance (commonly called rope), Interdiction,
Hotel/Motel, and the Career Criminal Squad.
The Career Criminal Squad (CCS) is the only squad that targets hate
crimes of a violent nature against individuals of all protected classes.
It was announced that this important unit was being closed in spite of the fact
that a pre-requisite for being investigated by this squad is that you be an
established, violent, career criminal who is, more often then not, part of an
organized group of career criminals that perpetrate the most heinous hate
crimes.Their efficiency and success
rate have been phenomenal.
Yet the reason the police administration was closing the unit was for “for
budget reasons.” This was shocking
to us in light of the fact that together, Council and citizens; we had achieved
zero police lay-offs and are beginning the process of an audit of public safety.
Action Taken by Citizens for Phoenix
- We immediately alerted CBS Channel 5 (Watch
video), the City Manager and the
Council of the problem and asked them the following questions:
-
Exactly which squad(s)
will be taking over these investigations when the majority of the CCS cases
actually originated from these other investigative squads?
-
Currently, the city of
Phoenix is responsible for paying the salaries of these four officers and
will continue to do so even if they are moved to patrol or elsewhere. However,
the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) not only pays
for their overtime, (hours that are necessary to have successful
investigations), the ATF has also offered them free of charge permanent
office space, vehicles, and ongoing training because they consider this
squad such a valuable partner in the fight against violent career
criminals.
- Who will pay the overtime
necessary for these other squads, who are not affiliated with ATF, to
complete these investigations successfully? How can we afford to work these
around the clock investigations without overtime?
- How will the other
squad(s) have the time to do the intricate, time consuming nature of these
investigations that also require existing relationships with outside agencies when all other investigative squads are running with staff shortages
averaging 40%?
- At this volatile time in
our city’s management of race relations, why would the police department
close down the only squad that targets violent criminals who commit crimes
against citizens of all protected classes at the very same time the Mayor is
calling for a Task Force to discuss Race Relations within the
community
We then got the word out to our partners in the community and asked them to
attend the March 23rd City Council Sub-Committee for Veteran’s Affairs and
Public Safety. About 20 members of
Citizens for Phoenix, representing a myriad of groups were joined by the
leadership of the Phoenix Police Union
(PLEA) to not only make sure that this squad was not closed, but that Fire and
Courts were part of the audit we had requested at the time of the passing of the
budget.
The Phoenix New Times
reported on our activity which was a big help.
The response from this committee chaired by Councilman Mattox and including
Councilpersons Johnson, Nowakowski, and Williams was excellent. They approved the audits of Public
Safety as a whole, beginning with police and courts, and fire; and requested
that the CCS closing be frozen until it could be taken up at the next full
council meeting.
Squad Still Closing!
It came to our attention that the squad had not been notified of the freezing of
the closure and were still being told to transfer to other positions or face
going back to patrol on July 1, 2010.
More Action Needed and Taken by Citizens for Phoenix
We contacted both Councilpersons Williams and Johnson, who were assured by City
Manager David Cavazos that the squad closure was frozen and there would be a
memo to that effect very soon.
On April 6th, still no memo written and the squad still not notified by 1:30pm
the day of the Council’s Policy Session to begin at 2pm, Councilwoman Williams
asks the City Manager what the status of the squad was. He assured her that they were frozen
and informed the council that some of the detectives had “self-selected” to
other squads.
Citizens for Phoenix sprang into action and our partners at PLEA, along with The
New Times and Channel 15 began putting pressure on the City Manager to explain why the
squad didn’t know it wasn't intact.
Success!
On April 7th, thanks to a combined effort an official memo Deputy City Manager was sent to the Phoenix Police Dept., and
copied to all Council members and to Citizens for Phoenix, to verify that not
only is the squad not closing, but the officers who had “self-selected”
transfers were being offered their jobs back.