Phoenix cop investigated for drunken rampage after Diamondbacks game

Phoenix police officer Timothy Clark apparently had quite the time while off-duty at an Arizona Diamondbacks playoff game in October 2023. He gulped down at least 10 alcoholic beverages as the Diamondbacks demolished the Los Angeles Dodgers. Afterward, Clark hit the bars near the stadium, going on a rampage that could cost him his law enforcement license.

On Wednesday, the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board opened an investigation into Clark for his drunken antics. 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.

According to POST compliance specialist Mike Deltenre, Clark’s postgame troublemaking allegedly included:

• Yelling at and flipping off customers and employees at several establishments
• Arguing with and attempting to fight a bar manager
• Interfering with two on-duty patrol officers in an unrelated matter
• Punching and breaking a framed picture
• Getting into a physical altercation with a security guard, breaking the guard’s watch and biting him
• Bragging that he was a cop at several bars

“Throughout the evening, Officer Clark was very intoxicated,” Deltenre told the board in the understatement of the year.

Clark’s night ended in his arrest and the Phoenix Police Department suspended him for six weeks, Deltenre said. He added that Clark is still employed by the department, though a Phoenix police spokesperson did not respond when asked to confirm that. City pay data shows Clark made $82,000 last year.

Now, AZPOST will look into yanking or suspending Clark’s license, because of that incident and another that occurred earlier in the month.

On Oct. 2 of that year, the Phoenix Police Department received an email from someone with the Fresno Police Department, who informed them that Clark had improperly shared sensitive information with a Fresno dispatcher. The two had “met” on social media and “shared multiple digital items,” Deltenre said, including body-worn camera videos, photographs of firearms and intelligence from the Arizona Crime Information Center, according to Deltenre.

The dispatcher forwarded the materials to a colleague, who took issue with the behavior and informed Phoenix police. Phoenix’s special investigations division determined that Clark’s misconduct was not criminal but was a violation of department policy.

A ruling on Clark’s certification may not come for several months.

In 2024, AZPOST opened 48 investigations into officers and punished 43 cops, including 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, lying to superiors or investigators and needlessly handcuffing an 82-year-old lady.

So far this year, the board has punished 10 current and former officers from across Arizona. It has opened investigations into 17, including three ex-Gila River cops for allegedly drunk driving an ATV recklessly around a park with children around, stealing a gun from a traffic fatality scene and pointing their firearms at each other as a joke. The board punished one of those officers in March, suspending his certification for a year and a half.

Other investigations and punishments

The board punished only one officer at its April meeting.

Jacob Keah-Tigh, a former officer in the Navajo Division of Public Safety, was caught in the agency’s weight room engaging in sexual acts with another employee while working the graveyard shift in May 2022. He resigned a year after the incident but joined Gallup’s police department in March 2024.

The board retroactively suspended Keah-Tigh’s law enforcement certification for one year, from May 2023 to May 2024. It’s unclear whether Keah-Tigh worked at the Gallup Police Department from March to May 2024 and how that affects his suspension.

The board rejected a six-month suspension of Phoenix police officer Warren Jackson for an incident that took place at the U.S.-Mexico border. Jackson took a personal gun to Mexico and lied to U.S. border patrol agents about possessing one on his way back into the U.S. The agents noticed bullet casings on the floor of Jackson’s car, searched the vehicle and found the gun. He was suspended for six weeks by the department.

Board members wanted a longer suspension for Jackson than six months. Col. Jeffrey Glover of the Arizona Department of Public Safety said he would like to see a suspension of 18 months. Mesa Police Chief Ken Cost set the bar at one year minimum.

“I think when you outright lie like this, it really just stains what we represent and what officers should be,” Cost said. “When his back was against the wall, he decided to be dishonest — so I think that’s more than a year.”

The board opened investigations into six other current or former cops at its April meeting, including three members of Phoenix’s police force. They include:

• Phoenix police officer Brandon T. Friday, who allegedly lifted a plastic bag of drugs during an investigation and did not log it as evidence. During an investigative interview with Sgt. Matthew Curry on Nov. 19, 2024, Friday said he didn’t know what he did with the bag but then later said he threw it away. He resigned immediately after the meeting.
  
  
• Phoenix police officers Louie A. Azevedo and Jacob K. Viviano, who in November 2022 allegedly pulled over a woman who was nine months pregnant and accused her of being drunk. The officers asked the woman to exit her car and perform field sobriety tests. She insisted she had not been drinking at all and requested to take a breathalyzer test. She also requested to speak with a supervisor, those the officers did not pass that up the chain. They administered a breathalyzer — which showed no alcohol in her system — but decided she was inebriated based off field sobriety tests that body-cam footage showed were improperly administered. The officers arrested the woman and put incorrect information on a search warrant affidavit in order to be able to draw her blood for more tests. Both officers received 240-hour suspensions but are still employed by the department. Bill Mundell, a chief deputy of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, asked AZPOST staff to collect more information and expressed concern that the officers had testified in previous DUI cases and had an improper impact on the criminal justice system.
  
  
• Yuma County Sheriff’s Deputy Carlos Lopez, who allegedly made an odd detour to stop in front of a house while on the way to a collision site in October 2024, which supervisors noticed while tracking his vehicle. When questioned by a supervisor about his movements, he said he forgot his body camera, though records showed that he checked his body camera out that morning. When confronted with that information, Lopez said he actually got lost but did not want to admit it. He subsequently resigned.
  
  
• Glendale police officer Jose C. Vega-Jordan, who allegedly backed his patrol SUV into another officer’s vehicle in July 2024, damaging the other officer’s car. He didn’t tell anyone, dash cam footage showed what happened — including that Vega-Jordan did not leave a note, contrary to what he claimed at the time. Before he could be fired, he resigned on Aug. 2, 2024. Prosecutors declined to file charges.