It was January 2, 1999, and 9-year-old Kimber Biggs and her 11-year-old sister were playing in the street in their Mesa neighborhood while waiting for the ice-cream truck. After a while, Kimber got cold and went inside for her jacket; her sister stayed to wait, clutching the quarters she got…
In a move designed to increase transparency, accountability, and civilian-officer relations, officers with the Arizona State University Police Department now wear body cameras as part of their uniform. ASU purchased 80 cameras that weigh only 3.5 ounces and can record up to 9.5 hours of audio and visual footage. The…
More than a year after the use of an experimental-drug cocktail left an inmate gasping on the executioner’s gurney for nearly two hours, the Arizona Department of Corrections has revised its lethal-injection protocols — but prisoner advocates say the changes won’t fix the problem. When Joseph Wood was put to death…
The Phoenix Police Department Disciplinary Review Board is suggesting Sergeant Percy Dupra — the officer who fatally shot Michelle Cusseaux during a routine court-mandated mental health pick up order last year — be demoted for his actions, and Cusseaux’s family and friends are furious. “[The] decision not to recommend termination…
A detective in a massage-parlor sting was nude when he began receiving what court records call a “hand job” from a suspect in May, but Glendale police insist the officer stayed within policy. The incident during an undercover operation demonstrates the fine line officers have to walk to make busts…
The parents of a teenager — who recently was sentenced to five years in prison after trying to hide her pregnancy by throwing her newborn out of a window — say they’ve been denied custody of their granddaughter because they’re undocumented. Samantha Perez was 15 years old when she was…
A U.S. Border Patrol agent stopped a motorist on Highway 95, 75 miles from Mexico. When the man refused to consent to a search, the officer kicked a dent in the man’s car while four of his colleagues surrounded the driver with weapons drawn, forced him to the ground, and…
Rumain Brisbon, the 34-year-old father of three who was fatally shot in the back last December by a Phoenix police officer is buried in an unmarked grave. With less than two months until the one-year anniversary of his death, his family and friends are trying to get him the headstone…
Phoenix police released surveillance video this week they say could help catch the killer of a transgender woman murdered in August. On August 11, the last images of 35-year-old Kandis Capri were captured on a Phoenix convenience store camera as she walked outside in the parking lot. Wearing a striped…
A Peoria high school teacher and his wife are the latest in a long line of Metro-Phoenix educators accused in sex scandals involving students. Brian Woolsey, a 45-year-old Sunrise Mountain High School teacher, has been arrested and charged with 13 counts of sexual conduct with a minor and two counts…
Phoenix police raided the home of a man suspected of raising roosters for cockfighting, finding about 45 birds and other evidence of the banned blood sport. Carlos German Vasquez-Morales, 30, was booked into jail on suspicion of 45 felony counts, then released with a pending court date. The investigation began…
Following a new report released by the Phoenix Police Department about officer involved shootings, tensions in the community about law enforcement’s use of force tactics are once again running high. The report – which was a joint-effort by the PPD and ASU – found that officers lack the proper training…
Roger Scott watched the press conference in a windowless 8-by-12 cell in the maximum-security wing of Arizona State Prison-Eyman on a clear, plastic television specially designed to prevent inmates from hiding contraband amid its internal wires. Frail at 67, with hollow cheeks and a perpetually trembling right arm, he sat…
A Phoenix man held in connection with the attack on the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas, claims that he’s been denied proper medical care in the Maricopa County Jail and demands immediate access to a doctor. Prosecutors accuse Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, a 44-year-old carpet cleaner, of…
Crystal Jane McElroy is a 30-year-old Arizona woman who is apparently unqualified for a criminal career, iif her recent antics outside the restaurant where she worked are any indication. Apparently unaware of a police vehicle that coincidentally was parked a few yards away, McElroy called 911 from the parking lot…
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced today that it is formally charging Leslie Allen Merritt jr. with 16 counts of criminal activity in association with a series of shootings primarily on Interstate 10 in Phoenix during the last few weeks. His charges include four counts of drive-by shooting, five counts…
The Phoenix Police Department received more than $600,000 in federal grant money this week to double the number body cameras on officers — there are currently about 150 cops wearing cameras in the Maryvale precinct, and with the new money, 150 more cameras will be distributed throughout the city, bringing…
The Arizona Department of Public Safety announced this evening that it had arrested 21 year-old Leslie Allen Merritt, Jr., alleging he was the man responsible for at least some of the recent shootings of vehicles along the I-10 in Phoenix. Speaking at a press conference this evening, flanked by U.S. Marshal…
The Phoenix Police Department’s Use of Force Board has decided that the officer who fatally shot Michelle Cusseaux outside of her apartment last summer, Sergeant Percy Dupra, was in violation of department policy. The findings of the board, which is comprised of three citizens and three officers, runs contrary to…
Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan could give Rob Zombie and M. Night Shyamalan a run for their money when it comes to the production of sheer horror. Save for the fact that what Zombie and Shyamalan create is mere fiction that’s finished after a couple of hours in…
Though online detractors claim they are more of a “Dolt Force,” the vigilante group calling itself “Bolt Force” is scoring international publicity from the freeway shootings in Phoenix that the Arizona Department of Public Safety is investigating. In fact, when the group’s leader, Tony “Bolt” Rowley, is not getting stopped…
After years of struggling with her gender identity, 35-year-old Kandis Capri, a transgender Phoenix woman, was finally getting her life together. She had resumed attending church and was enrolled in classes at South Mountain Community College, intent on studying theology. And for the first time in years, Capri was living…
