Phoenix police chief calls spike in violence ‘an alarming trend’

PHOENIX – One day after a Phoenix police officer was shot during a traffic stop, Chief Jeri Williams called a spike in violence involving her department “an alarming trend” and said the reasons behind it remain unclear.

“I wish I knew one key cause of it, which is why I think it’s critically important to have the study to begin that process of really drilling down and dissecting what’s happening,” she said Friday during a wide-ranging interview with KTAR News 92.3 FM.

She was referring to a $150,000 independent study into the causes of the violence that the City Council approved last month at Williams’ request.

“We’re inviting an outside entity to come in and look at us. Most professional organizations do that, and the Phoenix Police Department is a professional organization,” she said.

“So I’m looking forward to what the study produces. I’m looking forward to what lessons we can learn from the study and what lessons we can share with the community.”

Thursday night’s incident, which left the officer and a suspect hospitalized with gunshot wounds, was the 34th officer-involved shooting of the year in Phoenix.

“And just prior to that incident happening, we also had an assault on an officer in another part of the city,” she said.

“So the facts are that this is happening all across the city with people of different ethnicities, genders. Firearms are a piece of the equation, as are other things, and at the end of the day it’s an alarming trend.”

Earlier this month, the department posted statistics to its Facebook page comparing the first five months of 2018 to the same period in 2017. There was a 45 percent increase in assaults against officers this year, with 10 percent of the incidents involving guns. In 2017, 4.2 percent of violence against officers involved guns.

“Also, at the end of the day, though, we have to keep things in perspective,” she said.

“So these are 34 individuals who made the conscious choice to do something against our officers. We take over a million calls for service, and most of the calls for service end very well.”

Williams said her department will continue taking proactive actions such as the study and increased training.

“We’re running through de-escalation techniques, we’re running through tactics, we’re running through less-lethal applications,” she said.

“I’m just kind of reminding our officers of all the different tools that they have to really manage an incident when they get there.”

Despite the job’s dangers, Williams said classes of new recruits remain full.

“They still want to be police officers because they want to be servants,” she said.

“I look at law enforcement and the men and women who put this uniform on as folks who want to protect and to serve and they have servants’ hearts. And those folks are still out there in the community.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Griselda Zetino contributed to this report.

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