by Joseph Yang | Jan 21, 2024 | Opinion
By Joseph Yang |
In whatever field you work for, can you imagine doing your job with one hand tied behind your back? What about both hands tied behind your back? Well, for the Phoenix Police Department this is no longer an “imagination,” this is their reality.
For the past 2 years, the Department of Justice has been investigating the Phoenix PD on the basis of allegations against the department regarding use of force, retaliation to protestors, and mistreating the homeless. For 2 years the Phoenix PD has been fully compliant with their investigation as stated by the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association in an open letter to Mayor Kate Gallego; “Because the city and it’s police department have nothing to hide, you have cooperated with every aspect of the DOJ’s investigation thus far – rightly so, and with our full support.”
However, the Phoenix PD, in that same open letter, conveyed their dismay to Mayor Gallego; “I write to you today on behalf of PLEA, United Phoenix Firefighters Local 493, AFSCME 2384, AFSCME 2960, ASPTEA and neighborhood groups Operation Blue Ribbon, Violence Impact Coalition, and Phoenix Mid-Century Modern Neighborhood Association to express our concerns about the direction of the DOJ investigation and its implications for the future of the City of Phoenix.” The Department of Justice, after concluding their “investigation,” has recommended—as they always seem to do—a consent decree go in effect for the Phoenix PD.
Now, why is this such a bad thing? Why are people against this? Here are a few of the reasons.
At What Cost
Let’s start with the most obvious reason taxpayers and residents of Phoenix oppose this. The financial burden on the City of Phoenix would be astronomical, costing the city $10 million alone for the court ordered monitor required by the consent decree. The rest of the cost widely depends on the length a consent decree is in effect for, but the Seattle PD, which has a consent decree, has spent $100 million so far. And that number continues to climb as the consent decree remains in place. I am sure you can see why taxpayers would be against this.
“I’m From the Government, and I’m Here to Help”
If the cost alone isn’t enough to sway you, then let’s look back on Ronald Reagan’s famous quote that the “nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” This is exactly what is going on in Phoenix. There really is no reason that someone from another state or the federal government should be dictating or instructing officers within the Phoenix PD. This takes away our state and local sovereignty. While the Phoenix PD is not perfect, they have taken actions and steps to improve and make policy and training changes when necessary. For the DOJ to come in and overreach in such a way, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, is grossly inappropriate.
The CRIME, Need More Be Said?
If you look at cities that have a consent decree in place, violent crime has skyrocketed! In a statement, about a survey of officers within the Phoenix PD, the President of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association said, “In [the survey], we asked what the members felt would happen to crime if a consent decree was implemented. 93.73% said crime would rise either somewhat or substantially. That is in line with what we have seen across the country.” In that same survey, officers were asked how likely they would be to retire if a consent decree were to go in effect for Phoenix PD. The President of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association shared the results, saying, “Here in Phoenix, we are approximately 600 short of the max staffing of 3,125. In a recent survey, PLEA asked members how likely they would be to retire or resign if a consent decree was implemented in Phoenix. 12.57% responded that they would definitely retire or resign, while another 30.26% said they would strongly consider retiring or resigning. 42.87% is a concerning number!” Phoenix already has rising crime rates. We cannot afford to lose more officers. We need to gain more!
This Affects Us ALL
If you don’t live in Phoenix, why should you care? Phoenix is the 5th largest police department in the U.S. If the DOJ can do this to Phoenix, what will stop them from coming to Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Scottsdale, or other cities in the valley? Not only that, but if crime rates soar in Phoenix, that will certainly flow into neighboring cities. As the residency rates rise in Arizona, crime is bound to rise too, but so far Arizona has remained a decently safe state to live. However, if this consent decree goes in effect, there’s no telling how bad it could get.
Speed, Speed, Speed
After a slow and drawn-out investigation, speed seems to be the name of the game for the DOJ all of a sudden. After the DOJ concluded its two-year investigation, it brought its recommendation to the city council and for a decision within 48 hours. Many council members were frustrated and curious as to why an outside entity came into their city and demanded action in 48 hours when they themselves got 2 years to do their investigation. As Phoenix Councilwoman Ann O’Brien said, “Phoenix has been transparent and collaborative, now it’s time for the DOJ to do the same.”
This Is Nonpartisan
This is a non-partisan issue that affects all Arizonans, and we need you in this fight. Even the Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, a Democrat, has announced his resignation because of the lack of ability to run his office due to this consent decree. That’s why I encourage everyone in our state to go to community forums hosted by the Phoenix PD and voice your concerns. The future of our state may depend on it.
Joseph Yang is a young community leader and grassroots activist. He currently runs a community organization and serves on the Chandler Police Review Panel. Joseph is the Founder of the East Valley Young Republicans and current assistant state advisor for the TeenAge Republicans. He hosts a show called “The Conservative Seoul Show” that you can find here.
by Corinne Murdock | Oct 2, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) awarded Arizona $850,000 to fund the identification and transportation of illegal immigrant remains.
The DOJ Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Missing and Unidentified Human Remains (MUHR) awarded the funds to the Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) for the purpose of funding DNA analysis of the illegal immigrants.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ-07) announced the funding in a press release. Grijalva said the program was important to “bring closure” to the families of the deceased.
“Moving forward, we must humanize our border management and address the root causes of migration to prevent the perilous journey that too often results in a tragic loss of life,” said Grijalva.
MUHR is a new federal program that began this fiscal year (October 2022 through September 2023) specifically for the reporting, transporting, forensic testing, and identification of missing persons and unidentified human remains, including illegal immigrants.
So far, MUHR reported issuing six awards through April totaling nearly $4.5 million. Of those grants issued, around $2.5 million were for identifying remains that included illegal immigrants: $996,000 to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, $496,000 to Miami-Dade County in Florida, $996,000 to Texas State University.
Just over 532 illegal immigrant remains have been recovered in the state since 2021, according to a joint data collection effort by medical examiner’s offices in Pima and Maricopa counties. The data collection effort refers to the illegal immigrants as “undocumented border crossers.” Per their data, illegal immigrant remains recovered reached their highest levels since 2007, over 200 annually, in 2020.
This data includes causes of death beyond those related to border crossing activity and beyond the border, with remains included in the count ranging up into Phoenix.
The following causes of death are included in illegal immigrant deaths: asphyxia, blunt force injury, diabetes, drug overdose, exposure, exsanguination (severe blood loss), heart disease, motor vehicle accident, nonviable fetus, other disease, other injury, other injury/homicide, pending, pregnancy complication, skeletal remains, undetermined. A majority of the deaths concern skeletal remains with pending or undetermined causes of death.
In 2021, there were the following deaths: skeletal remains (112), exposure (76), undetermined (14), blunt force injury (11), pending (3, found in desert areas), drowning (3), asphyxia (1), drug overdose (1), and other disease (sepsis, 1).
In 2022, there were the following deaths: skeletal remains (90), exposure (51), undetermined (22), blunt force injury (5), drowning (1), drug overdose (1), asphyxia (1), gunshot wound (1), and other injury (1).
So far this year, there have been the following deaths: exposure (55), skeletal remains (47), undetermined (15), blunt force injury (11), heart disease (3), pending (2), and gunshot wound (1).
Last year’s numbers marked a decline from the highs of 2020 and 2021: there were 173 bodies recovered. This year’s total so far is slightly lower than last year’s: 134, compared to 137 this time last year.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 31, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Monday, a federal judge sentenced 64-year-old Mark Rissi to 2.5 years in prison for threats made to a Maricopa County election official and the former attorney general.
Rissi, an Iowa native, issued two separate threats in late 2021 to Maricopa County Board of Supervisors member Clint Hickman and former Attorney General Mark Brnovich. Rissi pleaded guilty to two counts of sending a threatening interstate communication.
Rissi told Hickman in a September 2021 voicemail that he would “lynch” him, and that he was going to die by hanging; months later, Rissi told Brnovich in a December 2021 voicemail that he would hang him as well. Rissi made it clear in both voicemails that he was dissatisfied by how both men were responding to allegations of the theft of the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump.
The DOJ arrested Rissi last October.
Rissi testified that he made the threats while under the influence of sleeping and pain medications he’d taken to mitigate his depression over his mother’s death, which he blamed on the COVID-19 vaccine, and the influence of misinformation regarding the elections process in Arizona. Rissi asked for forgiveness.
Arizona District Judge Dominic Lanza, a Trump appointee and longtime Federalist Society member, handed down Rissi’s sentence. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys Tanya Senanayake and Sean Lokey prosecuted the case, representing Hickman and Brnovich.
Senanayake has been with the DOJ since 2020 and, prior to that, served as a Federal Election Commission attorney for five years. In 2022, Lokey was named Arizona’s district election officer to oversee election day complaints of voting rights concerns, threats, and fraud.
In remarks to the judge, Senanayake said Rissi’s speech represented “threats to democracy.” Senanayake asked for 24 months in prison.
In a statement presented to the court by Senanayake, Brnovich asked for Rissi to be held accountable.
Hickman claimed in an interview with the “Mike Broomhead Show” on KTAR News that he petitioned for a lesser sentence for Rissi. Hickman also claimed that Lanza said he needed to make an example of Rissi.
“I gave the judge the ability to offer mercy and compassion for a guy that should not be spending maybe some of his last years on this earth in a jail cell,” said Hickman. “And I asked for compassion and mercy. The judge heard that and then the judge said, ‘Listen, we have to prove a point. This is the judicial system and punishment needs to be meted out.’”
In a press release, DOJ Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri warned that threats to election officials will be met with significant punishment.
“This sentence makes clear that individuals who illegally threaten election officials and others associated with the electoral process will face meaningful penalties,” said Argentieri. “The Justice Department will diligently investigate and prosecute attempts to illegally threaten, intimidate, and coerce the individuals administering the nation’s free and fair elections.”
Rissi’s case was one of the many under investigation by the DOJ’s Election Threats Task Force. According to a meeting from one year ago, the DOJ was investigating around over 100 cases out of over 1,000 they reviewed.
The DOJ launched the task force in July 2021 under Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
Monaco served as Homeland Security Advisor, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division under former President Barack Obama.
Monaco has worked in the upper ranks of every Democratic presidential administration since former President Bill Clinton. Monaco has served as a research coordinator for the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired at the time by now-President Joe Biden, working on the Violence Against Women Act; legal intern for the White House Counsel’s Office and then counsel to former Attorney General Janet Reno under former President Bill Clinton.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Aug 29, 2023 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Biden administration and the dark left money network are demanding access to nonparty conservative organizations’ private documents in two lawsuits against election integrity laws requiring proof of citizenship and voter roll cleanups.
In the case Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes (2:22-cv-00509) the Department of Justice (DOJ), Democratic National Committee (DNC), Arizona Democratic Party, and leftist dark money groups including: Mi Familia Vota, Living United For Change Arizona (LUCHA), and Voto Latino are challenging the election integrity bills HB2243 and HB2492. In the case Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes (2:21-cv-01423), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, League of Conservation Voters, LUCHA, Mi Familia Vota, and Arizona Coalition for Change are challenging SB1485.
Any individuals or organizations that aren’t party in a lawsuit are considered “nonparty.” Federal law allows for nonparty individuals and organizations to be brought into a case and be compelled to disclose evidence requested. In these cases challenging Arizona’s three election integrity laws, that means conservative organizations are being asked to hand over private documents, communications, legislative correspondence, lobbying strategy, and information on contributions and expenditures.
Those issued nonparty subpoenas include the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) and the Republican Party of Arizona. No court has issued an injunction on the contested laws to date.
The Goldwater Institute is representing AFEC in their defense against the subpoenas. In a motion to quash the subpoenas, the organization argued that private opinions have no bearing on the validity of a challenged law, citing precedent set by Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), and that the subpoenas threaten the rights to free speech and privacy.
“The Supreme Court has stated time and again that individual legislators’ opinions about a statute reveal little or nothing about the law’s meaning and validity,” read the motion. “It is thus all the more true that the statements and opinions of private parties, several degrees removed from any official government action, have no bearing on the question of whether a state law is consistent with federal law.”
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, declared in a report that the budding leftist practice of filing nonparty subpoenas against conservative individuals and organizations constitutes a weaponization of federal law to intimidate and silence conservatives.
AFEC’s subpoena came from the Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition (AZ AANHPI for Equity). While that organization argues for total transparency of its ideological opponent, it is shrouded in mystery itself.
AANHPI for Equity and AZ AANHPI Advocates have independent websites, social media pages, and staff, yet the pair are presented as one entity in multiple locations (for example, on the AZ AANHPI for Equity “about us” page). Both were founded in July 2020 by Jennifer Chau, who has served as the director for AZ AANHPI for Equity, an unspecified nonprofit, and executive director for AZ AANHPI Advocates, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, since their inception according to her LinkedIn page.
According to the IRS, AZ AANHPI Advocates had its federal tax exempt status automatically revoked in mid-May for not filing any tax forms in the entire three years of its existence (EIN:85-2344934). The IRS issued its revocation posting earlier this month. No IRS records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
Yet, both organizations’ websites continue to solicit donations and market themselves as nonprofits. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) awarded AZ AANHPI Advocates good standing for its status as a nonprofit in mid-July as well. No ACC records exist for AZ AANHPI for Equity.
On its website, AZ AANHPI Advocates discloses that it receives funding from top leftist dark money organizations The Future We Need and Arizona Wins!. The listed address for The Future We Need is the same address for the Arizona Education Association and Progress Now Arizona (now Progress Arizona); yet, no such organization as “The Future We Need” exists per ACC, the IRS, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), or the secretary of state’s campaign finance databases. There does exist a similarly-named dark left political action committee (PAC) entity, “The Future We Want.”
In their entire three years of advocacy and fundraising, only AZ AANHPI Advocates had any campaign finance records filed within the state: just one receipt of $10,000 from Invest in Arizona in August 2021, for “signature gathering.” According to the secretary of state’s campaign finance database, AZ AANHPI has never filed any reports on their contributions or expenditures.
Invest in Arizona and Arizona Wins both had one top Democratic dark money handler in common: Dacey Montoya. (Gov. Katie Hobbs’ controversial former press secretary, Josselyn Berry, worked as the program manager for Arizona Wins from 2015 to 2016 and executive director for ProgressNow from 2016 to 2019; Hobbs’ gubernatorial campaign used the same mailing address as both organizations; and Montoya’s consulting firm was involved in both Hobbs’ secretary of state and gubernatorial campaigns). Montoya is now the treasurer for the organization behind the ballot initiative to legalize any and all abortion up to birth, Arizona for Abortion Access.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Jul 29, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Wednesday, Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced a lawsuit against the Biden administration for regulations treating unfinished, non-functional firearm parts as complete firearms.
Brnovich led a 17-state coalition lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the new regulations. In a press release, Brnovich said that the Biden administration was undermining American tradition on private firearm manufacturing.
“The ATF is attempting to overshoot the authority granted to it by Congress,” stated Brnovich. “The rulemakings are unconstitutional, impractical, and would likely put a large number of parts manufacturers out of business.”
The lawsuit addressed the ATF’s final rule, “Definition of ‘Frame or Receiver’ and Identification of Firearms,” issued in April. The ATF claimed in these updated guidelines that past definitions didn’t adequately describe modern frames and receivers. Accordingly, those definitions were untenable when seeking to regulate firearm parts used to assemble privately made firearms (PMFs), colloquially termed “ghost guns.” Therefore, the ATF argued, the definition of frames and receivers should include firearm parts and their variants.
The final rule will go into effect on August 24. The agency added that they will publish an additional final rule, which they characterized as a “stabilizing brace” to their guidelines, in December.
In the 168-page complaint, Brnovich asserted that the Biden administration regulations were “arbitrary, capricious, [and an] abuse of discretion” that violated multiple federal laws as well as the Constitution’s separation of powers, Fifth Amendment, Second Amendment, and First Amendment.
At the helm of the complaint are Gun Owners of America (GOA) and Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), affiliate nonprofits owned by North Dakota resident Eliezer Jimenez, and Morehouse Enterprises doing business as Bridge City Ordnance, a firearms dealer. The lawsuit insisted that the regulations would incur “ever encroaching, illegal, and unconstitutional infringements of their right to keep and bear arms.” It predicted that firearms dealers would be required to keep illegal records of privately-made firearms, and restructure their businesses entirely.
Joining Arizona are West Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
