Mesa, 7 East Valley police departments create team to look at use of force

By J. Graber
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Eight East Valley police departments are joining forces to improve transparency in the investigative process when officers are involved in the use of force.

Apache Junction, Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Paradise Valley, Queen Creek, Scottsdale and Tempe police are combining to create the East Valley Critical Incident Response Team, which hits the ground July 1.
That means officers from other agencies will investigate the use of force when used by police from any given agency.

For instance, if a Scottsdale Police officer shoots a suspect, another officer from the police department can no longer investigate the situation. Officials from one of the other participating departments will do that work.

“It allows for objectivity for these investigations to happen,” said Scottsdale Police Department spokesman Officer Aaron Bolin. “Police critics will tell you, ‘Oh they always investigate themselves and they never find anything wrong. This takes away some of that.”

A critical force incident is defined as either an officer-involved shooting or any incident involving the use of force resulting in death or serious injury of another person.

Between 2018 and 2022, there have been 67 officer involved shootings between Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe and Scottsdale - five of them involved Scottsdale Police.

The team’s creation stems from the passage of House Bill 2650, which says police departments can no longer investigate the use of force by one of their own officers.

That law goes into effect July 1, 2025, but the departments involved wanted to start sooner.
“I don’t want to see or read that this is a trial period,” Bolin said. “We’re not trying it out; this is the direction we’re going in.”

West Valley police departments have a similar team in place, but East Valley department officials have been discussing the idea for at least five years, Bolin said.

The team’s creation will not require an additional officer by any agency, but having officers from different agencies working together could slow the process of getting information to the public, at least at first, Tempe Police Department spokesman Ryan Cook said.

A public information officer will be available within hours after a critical incident occurs, as is standard now, but follow-up information could take longer to get out, Cook said.

“There will be a lag, how much, it really depends,” Cook said. “There are some agencies here right now who have six person teams on their (public information officer) squad, there are some of us with two and a part-time person, or even one ... but to say it’s going to be 30, 60, 80, 90 days to get out a critical incident brief or to get back body worn camera (footage) is difficult to say.”

Mesa Police Department spokesman Steve Berry said much of what the new team will do has been happened “for years or decades” already.

“For some reason, whatever, the incident came up and we would reach out to Scottsdale or Glendale or whomever and say, ‘Hey, can you look at this?’ With the law coming into place next year, this formalizes things that have already been happening in the past. They didn’t always happen, but now they’re always going to happen. It certainly formalizes things that have been going on in the past with other agencies."

Even though the team doesn’t officially go active until July 1, Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther has asked it to investigate the June 13 incident in which Scottsdale Police Detective Ryan So was killed.
So was serving a search warrant when he removed a bag from a vehicle. A rifle in the bag fell out, discharged and hit So.

Bolin noted while the situation doesn’t technically meet the definition of a critical incident, the law allows a police chief to request the team to be brought in to a situation.

J. Graber can be reached at jgraber@iniusa.org. We invite our readers to submit their civil comments pro or con on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.