On Thursday July 5th, 2018, the Phoenix City Council voted to spend 149 thousand dollars to commission a study by the Police Foundation out of Washington DC to try to determine why officer involved shootings are on the increase. Councilmen DiCiccio and Waring both voted no.
PLEA spoke out against this study at a Public Safety Sub-Committee meeting held on June 13th and also sent a letter to the Mayor and Council expressing our concerns and reasons why we believe spending this amount of money on a study of this nature is ill advised. CLICK HERE to read the letter.
PLEA also published a web piece on titled: Why are Officer Involved Shootings on the Increase? This article provides the real reasons behind why we are seeing more officer involved shootings.
Ironically, many activists that showed up were also not in favor of the study and and also viewed it as a waste of money albeit, for different reasons.
149 thousand dollars out of the police department budget is a steep price to pay for political cover.