The briefing included edited body camera footage and dispatch audio, but some criminal justice advocates have criticized the agency's policy of releasing the briefings in lieu of the full footage.
Funk, who was Mexican American, was released from prison on February 1 after serving a 20-year sentence for second-degree murder, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.
His freedom was short-lived, as 10 days later, he would lose his own life.
Controversial Restraint Used Before Death
Officers encountered Funk on February 11 after a staff member at an inpatient health facility, which has not been named, called 911. "We have a crisis situation," the staff member told the dispatcher. "We have a client that is just out of control."In the 911 call, the staff member said that Funk was "breaking everything" and throwing objects. "He's coming down off drugs, so he's a little bit delusional," she added.
When officers arrived, they found Funk crouched outside the building, covering his head with a metal trash can lid and speaking incoherently. The body cam footage shows that there were only two officers on the scene at first. They attempted to take the trash can lid from Funk but ultimately decided to step back and wait for backup.
Three more officers then arrived, according to another clip of body camera footage released by the agency. The officers handcuffed Funk as he lay on his stomach on the sidewalk, then restrained his legs and connected them with a strap to the wrists. The footage reveals that at least two officers knelt on Funk's back while he was handcuffed and his legs were tied.
When officers moved off him, Funk was unresponsive, and there was blood or other fluid by his head visible on the concrete. An ambulance was called, and the agency said Funk became "critical" while in the ambulance. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
The officers used a device called a hobble, which is a rope that ties a person's feet to handcuffs or their hands, to restrain Funk even though he was not kicking or resisting. Although Funk was not hogtied, a dangerous position in which the legs are restrained behind the back and lifted off the ground, the use of hobbles is controversial and has led to death in other cases.
The Phoenix police use of force policy bans hogtying but says that the use of a hobble has a "minimal chance of injury." In a proposed new use of force policy released in January, the practice of hogtying is not discussed.
Funk's death echoes that of Ramon Lopez, a 28-year-old man who died in 2020 after being restrained by Phoenix police officers with a hobble while on his stomach, as well as that of Muhammad Muhaymin, who died in 2017 after several Phoenix police officers kneeled on his back while restraining him.
An internal investigation into Funk's death is ongoing, the agency said.
Phoenix Police Shoot, Kill 3 People in 4 Days
Funk's death is the latest in a series of deadly incidents involving Phoenix police this year. In a four-day span in late February, officers shot and killed three people in separate incidents.On February 22, Phoenix officers shot and killed 41-year-old Derin Holmes in a neighborhood around 23rd Avenue and Glendale Avenue. Holmes fired a shot from a handgun, police claimed. The same day, Phoenix officers shot and killed Jason Resendez, 47, who they claimed pointed a handgun at officers and refused to drop it.
On February 25, Phoenix officers shot and killed Matthew Anthony Sansotta, a 36-year-old man, during the course of a DUI investigation.
On January 3, officers shot and killed 46-year-old Cosme Medina Núñez, who was holding a pair of scissors when he encountered officers in an alley. Just nine days later, officers shot and killed Kenneth Hearne, 37, who had shot a Scottsdale police officer the day prior.
The police department waits two weeks to release any body camera footage or dispatch audio from police killings, so there are limited details so far about the deaths of Holmes, Resendez, and Sansotta.
On Tuesday, Viri Hernandez, executive director of the advocacy group Poder in Action, condemned the latest spate of police shootings at a press conference at Phoenix City Hall.
"Just in the last two months of 2023, six people have been shot and killed by the Phoenix Police Department," she said. It was a continuation, she added, of a "culture of violence that we have seen year after year after year."
In 2023, Phoenix police have killed six people — five were shot to death and a sixth person, Funk, died in custody. In 2022, Phoenix police officers shot and killed 10 people, and in 2021, six people were killed in shootings.
