With the Arizona Supreme Court refusing to intervene in the case, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jose Padilla on Wednesday set a start date of April 4 for the trial of former minuteman and accused child molester Chris Simcox. “We need to get this to trial,” Padilla said during a…
Tempe police hit the social-media jackpot today with a clever meme based on the true tale of a guy who may now regret going that extra mile for his girlfriend. “CHIVALRY,” reads the caption of a picture of a white, four-door pickup truck in the parking lot of the Tempe…
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced during a press conference this morning that his office had filed a petition with the Arizona Supreme Court to remove the embattled Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Susan Bitter Smith from office for alleged conflicts of interests. In strident language, Brnovich said his fellow Republican…
A group of five condemned prisoners this week asked the U.S. District Court in Phoenix not to lift a moratorium on executions instituted after a botched 2014 lethal injection, arguing that the Arizona Department of Corrections has not properly addressed concerns about the drugs used for the procedure. A federal…
We’ve all done it: chugged our wine or whiskey during Thanksgiving dinner in an attempt to drown out the racist and political rambling of crazy uncle George. Dealing with family members often requires that the libations flow freely — we get it. But this year, if Uncle George goes on…
With the gun culture going strong here in the desert, it’s not hard to believe that Arizona is ranked the eighth most-dangerous state in the country.But there’s more to it than that. To calculate the measure of which states are most dangerous, the data crunchers at the personal finance website…
The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has launched a new cell phone app aimed at helping average civilians record inappropriate law enforcement activity and then safely and properly disseminate it to experts at the ACLU. The Mobile Justice AZ app has three major features: record, witness, and report. The…
Hours after Phoenix police Officer Richard Tucker was released from jail for a domestic-violence charge against his wife, he was arrested again and booked into jail on eight counts of alleged sexual exploitation of a minor over whom he had partial custody, police say. The timeline of events is a…
It was January 2, 1999, and 9-year-old Kimber Biggs and her 11-year-old sister were playing in the street in their Mesa neighborhood while waiting for the ice-cream truck. After a while, Kimber got cold and went inside for her jacket; her sister stayed to wait, clutching the quarters she got…
In a move designed to increase transparency, accountability, and civilian-officer relations, officers with the Arizona State University Police Department now wear body cameras as part of their uniform. ASU purchased 80 cameras that weigh only 3.5 ounces and can record up to 9.5 hours of audio and visual footage. The…
More than a year after the use of an experimental-drug cocktail left an inmate gasping on the executioner’s gurney for nearly two hours, the Arizona Department of Corrections has revised its lethal-injection protocols — but prisoner advocates say the changes won’t fix the problem. When Joseph Wood was put to death…
The Phoenix Police Department Disciplinary Review Board is suggesting Sergeant Percy Dupra — the officer who fatally shot Michelle Cusseaux during a routine court-mandated mental health pick up order last year — be demoted for his actions, and Cusseaux’s family and friends are furious. “[The] decision not to recommend termination…
A detective in a massage-parlor sting was nude when he began receiving what court records call a “hand job” from a suspect in May, but Glendale police insist the officer stayed within policy. The incident during an undercover operation demonstrates the fine line officers have to walk to make busts…
The parents of a teenager — who recently was sentenced to five years in prison after trying to hide her pregnancy by throwing her newborn out of a window — say they’ve been denied custody of their granddaughter because they’re undocumented. Samantha Perez was 15 years old when she was…
A U.S. Border Patrol agent stopped a motorist on Highway 95, 75 miles from Mexico. When the man refused to consent to a search, the officer kicked a dent in the man’s car while four of his colleagues surrounded the driver with weapons drawn, forced him to the ground, and…
Rumain Brisbon, the 34-year-old father of three who was fatally shot in the back last December by a Phoenix police officer is buried in an unmarked grave. With less than two months until the one-year anniversary of his death, his family and friends are trying to get him the headstone…
Phoenix police released surveillance video this week they say could help catch the killer of a transgender woman murdered in August. On August 11, the last images of 35-year-old Kandis Capri were captured on a Phoenix convenience store camera as she walked outside in the parking lot. Wearing a striped…
A Peoria high school teacher and his wife are the latest in a long line of Metro-Phoenix educators accused in sex scandals involving students. Brian Woolsey, a 45-year-old Sunrise Mountain High School teacher, has been arrested and charged with 13 counts of sexual conduct with a minor and two counts…
Phoenix police raided the home of a man suspected of raising roosters for cockfighting, finding about 45 birds and other evidence of the banned blood sport. Carlos German Vasquez-Morales, 30, was booked into jail on suspicion of 45 felony counts, then released with a pending court date. The investigation began…
Following a new report released by the Phoenix Police Department about officer involved shootings, tensions in the community about law enforcement’s use of force tactics are once again running high. The report – which was a joint-effort by the PPD and ASU – found that officers lack the proper training…
Roger Scott watched the press conference in a windowless 8-by-12 cell in the maximum-security wing of Arizona State Prison-Eyman on a clear, plastic television specially designed to prevent inmates from hiding contraband amid its internal wires. Frail at 67, with hollow cheeks and a perpetually trembling right arm, he sat…
A Phoenix man held in connection with the attack on the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas, claims that he’s been denied proper medical care in the Maricopa County Jail and demands immediate access to a doctor. Prosecutors accuse Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, a 44-year-old carpet cleaner, of…
