WASHINGTON – Five months after the Justice Department dismissed Biden-era findings that Phoenix Police routinely used excessive force, officer-involved shootings have increased sharply.

The city has seen 11 police shootings since May, averaging more than one per week since Aug. 28, when new Police Chief Matt Giordano was sworn in.

That’s an annual pace of 26 police shootings — almost double the number in the 12 months after the DOJ issued a scathing report on the Phoenix Police Department in June 2024.

From then until the Trump administration ended special federal scrutiny last May, Phoenix police recorded 14 officer-involved shootings — 10 of them fatal, according to the department’s public database.

Since 2013, police have killed 185 people in Phoenix, the nation’s fifth biggest city

See Full Page