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Board yanks license of ex-sheriff’s deputy who cuffed 82-year-old lady

Arizona's police standards board revoked the law enforcement license of Michael Uyehara, who cuffed an elderly woman in 2022.
Image: body-cam footage showing a handcuffed old woman from behind next to a sheriff's deputy
The Arizona Police Standards and Training Board revoked the license of a former Maricopa County Sheriff's deputy who handcuffed an 82-year-old woman. Arizona Police Standards and Training Board
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In August, Arizona’s top police licensing board opened an investigation into Michael Uyehara, a former Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputy who’d forcefully handcuffed an 82-year-old woman during a 2022 interaction. This month, the board completed its investigation and voted to revoke Uyehara’s law enforcement license.

Uyehara was one of seven current or former law enforcement officers from across Arizona to earn punishment from the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board at its Nov. 20 meeting. Known as AZPOST, the board licenses all law enforcement officers in the state and is one of the few agencies in Arizona with the power to discipline police.

The 12-member board includes Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, two rural sheriffs, Phoenix City Councilmember Kevin Robinson and Ryan Thornell, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. The board’s principal task is certifying all officers across the state, but it also has the power to revoke or suspend the certifications of officers who demonstrate troubling behavior.

As of its November meeting, AZPOST has opened 48 investigations into officers and punished 43 this year. So far in 2024, the board has punished officers for putting the muzzle of a gun to a woman’s head, asking two high school girls when they lost their virginity, driving while under the influence and lying to superiors or investigators.

This month, the board penalized officers who drove drunk, lied, violated a no-contact order against a significant other and refused to leave a casino. Here are the most notable cases on which the board decided this month.

click to enlarge body-cam footage showing a woman in handcuffs, a cane behind her back
Maricopa County sheriff's deputy Michael Uyehara handcuffed an 82-year-old Sun City woman who uses a cane when she attempted to enter the home of a neighbor whose husband had just committed suicide.
Arizona Police Standards and Training Board

License revoked

Uyehara received the harshest punishment: revocation of his peace officer certification.

Uyehara was part of a team responding to an October 2022 call from a Sun City woman who said her husband had shot himself. A paramedic told Uyehara that a neighbor who used a cane was coming over. When the neighbor arrived, Uyehara confronted her at the door and prevented her from entering.

According to video of the interaction shown at the meeting, Uyehara denied the woman entry and then threatened to arrest her after she told him to “listen for one second.” He handcuffed her, only taking her out of cuffs when other officers came outside to see what was going on. The woman later complained to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, claiming Uyehara bruised her wrists and arm.

The office conducted an internal investigation, which found that Uyehara made at least seven inaccurate statements in his report of the incident. One was that the woman tried to push past him to enter the house, which was directly contradicted by video evidence. Another was that he thought she might have taken the gun from the home and was returning to the scene, despite officers having informed Uyehara that the gun was already secured.

Uyehara told internal investigators that his inaccurate statements were the result of filling out his report standing up in the sun while holding his computer with one hand. But police saw video of him during the incident sitting at a table in the house’s courtyard, filling out a report.

Compliance specialist Tim Shay told the board that when internal investigators asked Uyehara if he could have done anything differently, the officer said, “Yeah, I could have shot her. I could have tased her. I could have kick-swept her foot and knocked her to the ground.”

The board voted unanimously to take away Uyehara’s peace officer certification. Uyehara had not been working for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office since April 1, when he resigned before the internal investigation was completed.

click to enlarge a payson police car
Former Payson police officer Geoffrey Gomez was suspended for 18 months for lying to his supervisors.
Payson Police Department Facebook Page

Lying to supervisors

The board also handed an 18-month suspension to former Payson police officer Geoffrey Gomez, who was accused of lying to his bosses.

The board opened an investigation into Gomez in May. At issue was his request to take February off supposedly to help his father with a construction project. In reality, Gomez was planning to attend a law enforcement class in California with the hope of becoming a police officer there. According to the board’s investigation, helping his father was a backup option in case he wasn’t approved for the class.

According to Assistant Attorney General Joe Dylo, Gomez did not tell his boss about the class “because he was worried about potential negative repercussions if the administration knew he planned on attending the lateral academy.

Gomez resigned on March 29 before he could be fired for dishonesty. His suspension runs until Sept. 29, 2025.

No-contact order

Former Safford police officer Kevin Lamoreaux received a retroactive two-year suspension due to a 2022 incident.

In January of that year, Lamoreaux’s wife reported to the Pima Police Department that her husband had physically assaulted her several months earlier. The department helped her get an emergency order of protection that contained a no-contact order. But Lamoreaux violated it by reaching out to her.

Lamoreaux then resigned from the agency, though Assistant Attorney General Mark Brachtl did not say when. Because it was retroactive, Lamoreaux’s two-year suspension has already ended.

‘Don’t touch me, bro’

Former Tucson Airport Authority officer Adam Barzar was having a good time at Desert Diamond Casino in Sahuarita one day in April 2022. Perhaps too good of a time.

Security asked Barzar, who was intoxicated, to leave the casino, but he refused. He was arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

While being detained by officers, he said, “Don’t touch me, bro” to one of them and swatted an officer’s hand away, according to Brachtl. Barzar was demoted from sergeant to police officer and later resigned from the department in June 2023 for a behavioral issue unrelated to the casino arrest.

The board suspended Barzar’s certification for two years, until June 2025.