Department of Justice investigates Phoenix police on “use of force” policies

Reaction continues to the Department of Justice’s plans to investigate Phoenix police over use of force and other policies and practices. Earlier, we spoke with Cloves Campbell Jr. the publisher of the Arizona Informant, to get his thoughts on the investigation.

Campbell’s initial reaction to hearing about the investigation was, “I thought that it’s about time…I think we needed the investigation. I think that there are a lot of things that happen not only recently but in the past and in the immediate past that it warranted investigation.”

What do you hope comes from this investigation?

“I’d like to see change. I’d like to see the fact that the police officers do more in the community, and not as much as making the community afraid of them,” Campbell said.

He continued to share his own experience, “a lot of people are uncomfortable around the police officers now. So, we want to get that back to where it used to be when I was younger—I knew a lot of the police officers. We grew up in the neighborhoods with them. And now we have a different type of mentality, new guys come into a precinct or in a community, and they don’t know the community.”

A big concern to Campbell is the approach from newer officers, “there’s a new younger breed that’s really quick to grab the gun, and that’s, that’s a real concern right now.”

Campbell said in places of danger,”police officers are trained to be calm in situations. And I think that goes a long way in how they react to what’s happening right in front of them… ‘Do I need to pull a gun?’ ‘Do I need excessive force?’ ‘Or can I work this thing out without being afraid of getting hurt myself?'”

“And so I’d like to see the DOJ really find some, some answers to how we can get people trained better, make sure that they assess situations a lot better, and look at it as though…they got to make sure lives are saved,” Campbell said.