Adriana Garcia Maximiliano

AZ I See It

In the spring of 2015, I was chosen to serve on the newly formed Community Police Trust Initiative Task Force created by Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher. I did not hesitate in accepting the offer.

I am a young woman, an immigrant, and have a history of advocating for social change. I felt I could make a difference and be an active part of a process to create real and necessary changes at the Phoenix Police Department. Unfortunately, working with the task force has been the most anti-community process I have ever been a part of.

The story behind the task force dates back six years. In March 2010, then-City Councilman Michael Johnson was roughed up by the Phoenix Police Department in a humiliating incident, which involved the councilman being handcuffed and thrown to the ground by a Phoenix police officer as Johnson was trying to assist a neighbor whose house was on fire.

The incident with Johnson, himself a 20-year veteran of the police force, prompted embarrassed officials to create a committee to prevent such events from occurring again. Unfortunately, recent news shows that work to be still unfinished.

In 2014, a national movement of Black people rose against police brutality sparked by the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. It spoke to the experiences of many who had suffered from police violence for years throughout the country.

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Only a few months after the death of Brown, Phoenix police shot and killed Rumain Brisbon, a young Black father. News of Brisbon's death also spread and prompted protests outside of Phoenix Police headquarters. Advocates showed up en masse to demand "#Justice4Rumain." But the protests were about more than the most recent incident. The Brisbon killing opened past wounds and highlighted the lack of change since the Johnson incident.

Similarly to that time, City Manager Zuercher formed the Community Police Trust Initiative Task Force to address the problems at the Phoenix Police Department. And so far, the process and results have been disappointing.

For a task force that starts with the word “community,” the public had no idea that it had been created. After we were assigned to the task force, we were told the process would be closed to the public, that we would not be allowed to have open meetings, or to speak to anyone outside the committee about its process, discussion or decisions.

Other than the 16 community members and city staff, no one was to be involved. We gave our nine recommendations to the city in November but that should not be the final step.

Zuercher and Assistant City Manager Milton Dohoney have declared that they would be the major decision-makers on the recommendations. But that shouldn’t be the final order.

It is unclear whether anyone in city leadership outside of Zuercher and Dohoney have seen the recommendations or what obligations, if any, the city manager has to implement these reforms.

The closed process on reforms that affect all Phoenix residents is a profoundly dangerous approach.

It is not too late.

Responding to advocates’ demands last month, the chairman of the public safety and veterans subcommittee, Councilman Michael Nowakowski, mandated that city officials detail the recommendations at a yet-to-be scheduled committee’s meeting.

With public disclosure must come room for public input.

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To put the “community” back into the title of the task force, there must be a plan for forums at all nine Phoenix police precincts and a preparedness to go beyond the proposed reforms we were tasked with generating. The recommendations are only the opinion of the few people on the task force and have an unknown future.

To be meaningful, the final reforms need to reflect the opinions and suggestions from people across the city, be made official by a vote of the public safety committee, and accompanied by an implementation plan with a timeline to enact them.

Moving on reforms without public input would be irresponsible, ineffective and unaccountable. The people of Phoenix, including me, won’t allow it.

Adriana Garcia Maximiliano is a member of the Community Police Trust Initiative Task Force and resident of Phoenix.

