A highly controversial precinct of the Phoenix Police Department will have a new commander, Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris announced.
Phoenix's South Mountain Precinct has been at the center of two high-profile, racially charged incidents since March, so perhaps a change in leadership is due -- or overdue.
Commander Chris Crockett will now head the precinct, following the latest incident. That incident, as we showed you yesterday, now involves an officer planting a crack pipe on a woman, which was all caught on tape.
Check out the video -- again -- after the jump (it's too outrageous to not show again).
As you can see in the video (if you skip to about 2:30 -- right after Officer Richard Chrisman is seen intimidating the woman in the video with his criminal-beater for no apparent reason), Chrisman and the female officer go to the trunk of the police cruiser and retrieve what police say was "drug paraphernalia." Then, they walk back to the woman, Chrisman hands the pipe to the female officer as she's patting down the suspect. The officers then tell the suspect they found the pipe during the pat down and rough her up a little bit -- probably because she denied the pipe was hers.
If you never really got why N.W.A. was so pissed, just watch that video.
Phoenix police say the officers never used the crack pipe as evidence against the woman -- rather, they just planted it to "get a reaction."
That "reaction" the officers caused was probably panic, fear, and anger. Each cop involved was only given a one-day suspension.
Chrisman is also the officer charged with murder charge for shooting an unarmed Hispanic man -- and his dog -- last week for no apparent reason.
Read all about that ridiculousness here.
The South Mountain Precinct was in the news again in March, when an officer threw Phoenix City Councilman Michael Johnson to the ground.
Johnson, who's black, was trying to assist his neighbor, whose house was on fire at the time.
The incident sparked a racial debate over charges that civil-rights violations happened far too frequently within the South Mountain Precinct.
Crockett will have his work cut out for him. There's already the impression that the South Mountain Precinct is full of racist cops, which doesn't play well considering it's smack-dab in the middle of an area with a lot of minorities. It's also a dangerous beat so Crockett will have to find the proper balance between thuggery and politeness.
