Phoenix, Consent Decrees, & The DOJ with PLEA President Darrell Kriplean

In fact , he's given several interviews about his work on the documentary to fall Minneapolis , but when you listen to this interview and he even relayed this back to me after he listened to it he gave information in that interview that he didn't give to anybody else and it's really important you listen to it .

So be sure to check that out Like the podcast , share it , review it .

It all helps to traction we're trying to get to get important messages out , like today , and , as you know , I have spoken and written quite a bit about federal consent decrees over law enforcement , and it seems like I'm one of the few talking about it and that's why I keep talking about it .

So I know maybe you're tired of it , but we have to understand this . We have to understand how to deal with this and where it takes us , or our profession is going to continue to struggle , as well as the communities that we serve . And I'm really honored today to have Darrell Kriplean on the show .

Darrell is the president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association . He's got 29 years of service in law enforcement and he's been the president just shy of two years for the association that speaks for Phoenix police officers . And , Darrell , right before you took this job , first off , thanks for being here .

And and , darryl , you've been integrally involved in this entire process from beginning to that day in January when you were probably surprised that your city had sent that letter .

I just kind of wanted to walk our audience through your experiences dealing with with the consent decree and the DOJ and all the things going on there , because , like you said , it's very difficult to understand . Most people think it's never going to apply to them till it does , and then you're always back on your heels trying to defend yourself .

Let's first take people through sort of what you quickly found out about consent decrees as you've gotten your position and started investigating this . This is going to be a very pressing issue for your tenure . What , when you called around , you started asking about these consent decrees , what did you find out ?

They said they collaborate but to me collaboration is a two-way street . If the department I know the department had provided tens of thousands of documents , tens of thousands of body worn camera video , all kinds of stuff , every time they asked for something , the department gave it to them . But there never was anything coming back to the department .

So it was hard for the department to gauge where it was . It was hard for the electives to understand what was going on . So I think to a certain degree a lot of those folks just kind of tried to ignore it while it was going on , until they started coming out and making you know having visits with us .

this fashion . You talk about the destruction of the cities and obviously you're like me . You've probably looked at these other cities that have engaged in these consent decrees .

When you , when you look at the potential success of something and think if somebody wants to come into your agency and help your agency improve , so to speak , you know okay is , do they have a successful track record ?

And when you look back over the last 30 years when they've gone into police departments I don't know about you , but I couldn't find one story of success . It was always higher crimes , lower morale , officers leaving the department and it just the budget just exploded . It's the average of $10 million a year .

Once you once you have to put in $30 to $50 million into that process . So you're actually in a county Maricopa County that's been under one of these decrees . They've spent over $250 million on it . So your residents kind of had a sort of lesson already in what this does . Is you think that probably helped you ?

Helped you sort of communicate to the residents and explain to them what this is ? Because that was a big part of what you've been doing is just communicating . Here's what's happened in the past . Do you want this here ? That's kind of been the central focus message , has it not ?

I mean , the DOJ is not going to talk about their processes and what they do to communities and departments that I'm going to . I couldn't understand why our department wasn't out talking to the communities .

Once I learned all this about the DOJ , you know , I continued to ask the chief why he wasn't out explaining this to the community , and I really think that to some degree that our chief was probably brought in to help us get the least intrusive consent decree possible , because it was a foregone conclusion that Phoenix was going to end up with one .

Well , as an officer who has a ton of pride in this department is proud to be a police officer for almost the past three decades I couldn't . I couldn't sit well with me . I couldn't let that happen without putting up some sort of fight .

So I take it upon myself to start trying to talk to anybody and everybody who would listen about these consent decrees and what they have done around the country and how they've been instructed They've been .

10 years of videos , 10 terabytes of data , and we'll pay for all of it . We'll do anything . You say we don't , you're not going to give us any answers back , you're not going to be transparent with what you're doing with the information .

We'll give you access to our record systems , we'll give you access to the deepest bowels of our police department in in cooperation , and we'll pay for all of it . So Phoenix PD has spent $6 million to date just complying with the request from the DOJ . Now that is insanity . Like , like . It just doesn't boggles my mind .

Like you would never go and investigate anything from police department and say , hey , we're investigating you bank for fraud , or we're investigating you for a burglary and you're going to pay my salary while I'm investigating you . How does that sound ? Everybody would think you weren't completely nuts .

If the burden of proof is on the DOJ , why is the police departments across this nation paying for that ?

Because you know , I think they truly believe that if they cooperate , that the DOJ is not going to , you know , hit him with this , this pattern and practice that's going to , you know , sound horrible and they're going to paint their department , as you know , a racist department that unconstitutionally polices their community on a regular basis .

I think they truly think that that's not going to happen if they cooperate . But every time , I mean , all you have to do is look at history and it's absurd to think that they're helping the DOJ against them . It's , it's the most absurd thing I've ever done .

The DOJ wasn't just going to leave and of course they weren't , and so this was tracking and I don't know . Three , six months ago , darrell , start seeing all this information about this website pops up save phxcom , which is Nothing shorter brilliant .

I know you're not involved in that , but it's nothing shorter brilliant for the residents to sort of rise up About this . They started doing the deep dive of what consent decrees are doing across the country . Put it all on this website .

I'll repeat that for everybody listening and be in the show notes save phxcom and it isa Masters degree in consent decree , because it is a complicated issue . It's not just just easy to say , oh deal J's here to reform . No , no , the deal J is here to destroy . And here's the evidence . And of course they've been doing it for 30 years .

There's plenty of evidence . So there's . I don't know how many articles are on this website , but it is crazy .

There's some geared directly towards Phoenix , but a lot of it were just geared towards what's happening Cleveland and Portland and Seattle and Chicago and a lot of these cities that nobody Would go on vacation on since the deal J's come into town with the crime rates are and everything else in the violence .

When you look at the top 20 murder cities in America , 12 are ran by the deal J through consent decrees . So I think your residents and of course , that messaging was more in the website like like you guys , you guys spend an incredible amount of resources and time Communicating with people , giving them the website tell , doing community meetings .

I know you brought in Bob scales , additional community means and , of course , everybody listening that wants to know about consent decrees . Check out Bob Scales on LinkedIn or the websites got some of those articles on there . So it's just really incredible the effort that you were able to put forth and what kind of staff do you have to do this ?

What , what do you credit this from , because this is no doubt why you've gotten to this point . This historic day , january 11 , was you communicated to the residents ? They found out about it , the politicians found out about it , and they can't play dumb by signing it .

When the sheriff of Maricopa County came out and said that he was resigning early because he just thought it was not going to work One of those types of conditions anymore when he's not making any headway that resonated with not only the community but the electives in our on our city .

But that website popping up I know it's safe phx , but there is so many resources on there that apply nationwide . I mean these are . This is how . This is the pattern and practice of the DOJ , all in one location . This , this is exposing them for what they have done and it really I tell you that that was a godsend because I can .

I can send my residents , like community members night , my city council folks , to that and they can read for themselves what the DOJ is all about and what they have done in other communities , without really doing any Searching for themselves . They can probably sit there for hours and read , and read , and read .

It's just very , it's very difficult and complicated to explain and I think I want to make sure people understand how what big of a deal is , because if You're able to succeed in Phoenix , it really sends a message to the rest of law enforcement . They're all this to me is bigger than Phoenix . Like the DOJ is an unstoppable force .

Oh , I think only one agency's ever got them to go away . Like when they come they don't leave for decades and when they leave it's a wave of destruction .

In fact , I Want to sort of tell our audience the process the deal J uses to do his consent decrees , because it's really unbelievable when you think about it , and I'll kind of lead them up to it and I'll give it to you . So what the deal J typically does is they always do it is they do this investigation , they don't say anything back to the department .

Then they go to the decision makers . So Governments are either council led or mayor led . So if it's mayor led , they go to the mayor and they tell the mayor hey , we did an investigation . It looks really bad . Your department is this your department is that we're healed , we're here to reform it . Just sign here .

And they don't show them the investigation , they don't tell them what they found , they just try to get him to sign it . Well , they did the same thing in Phoenix , errol . But you're not a strong mayor government . You are strong council governments .

You have council members that are tasked with making this decision and kind of explain to our audience what happened when that occurred .

So for any of them to agree to an agreement principle they need five of those city council people to agree to enter into that agreement . And that was , I believe that was a blow to the DOJ . I don't think they anticipated that they didn't do their homework .

And I had an occasion to run into Robert Moosey , who I believe is the number two at the Civil Rights Division underneath Kristen Clark , at an April conference and we had a pretty spirited interaction and I explained to him I go look you guys , this isn't normal .

You're going to have to convince five of those city council people that this is in their best interest and the city's best interest . And I've had a head start on you because I've been talking to him and he was a little bit taken aback by it . So I mean it's .

I think the city of Phoenix is unique because we are the largest city with that set up of government . But I truly hope this is a wake up call to all the other cities that the DOJ comes poking around in .

But you can say no , you don't have to help them , sue you . You don't have to help them in their case . Just tell them no , it's going to be just as bad if you cooperate . So why help them ?

That's my message , and that's what my message has been to our elected officials that you can't just agree to a huge bill that will last decades without knowing what the heck you're getting into . Well , yeah , it's irresponsible .

Because you don't have to give it publicly , but show it to the decision makers . Tell them the reason why it has to be done . But they have refused to do that , which tells me there's no upside for them to do that , because the because if you read what they have , you would obviously probably not sign it .

So they try to coerce you to sign it without even seeing it . I know Louisville did that . It's quick story . Louisville signed it , didn't see it .

Then , once they saw it , they said well , hold on a minute , this example isn't even correct and we fired this officer in this example and we've made this change because of this one the DOJ didn't care at that point . They got you to sign it to consent decrees coming .

You're not getting out of it and I cannot emphasize enough of , first off , how non transparent and weird that is , that they would operate that way . But they've always operated that way . They've always gotten away with that until they got to Phoenix and Phoenix goes yeah , we're not going to sign it until we read it , because they haven't refused to sign it .

Darrell , that's important to note . They just refuse to sign it because they don't know what they're signing , and to this day , the DOJ has not given that to them , and I'm convinced it's because there's nothing there , because why would you not give it to them If there's something there ?

I mean , the investigation got paid for by Phoenix , so the DOJ has got nothing to lose , monetary wise . So just show it to them .

But they won't , which is really weird , because they're using your own data , your own taxpayers information and data , and the taxpayers paid $6 million to give them this information , but then you won't show the investigation to the taxpayers . That's all strange to me , and so the DOJ certainly wasn't used to that pushback .

They now have it and the question is is now , what will they do Now ? They did one thing I've already noted previously in an article you check all that stuff out TravisHorg and seeing all that stuff Is , you'll start seeing the positive news stories pop up around the country about why consent decrees are good .

Now , this is important to note Just because Darrell and I are telling you how horrible consent decrees are doesn't mean we're against reform , but we're against veteran law enforcement . That's the very reason we're telling you how horrible consent decrees are .

What we're saying is that's not the way to make departments better , it's a way to make departments worse , and so Well , consent decrees aren't about reform for sure .

We're all about that Right . We've never have been against that Right . There's always a better way to do the job .

It's coming to a conclusion . Their city council has told them we are not going to sign something we haven't seen . And so the DOJ these , as I mentioned earlier , these positive stories popped up . Well , they they pinpointed Albuquerque as a success story .

In one particular story , I saw the chief was on there talking about how this has helped them and this and that . And I saw that and I thought to myself well , I've been to Albuquerque over the last 10 years . It hasn't gotten to be a better place . I know that because I've been going there .

So I looked at the data and to tell Albuquerque as a success story tells you all you need to know . So , darrell , when the DOJ came to Albuquerque in 2011 , the premise for coming was they had fatally killed 20 people in the previous three years , not to let's not talk about the fact that there could be very good reasons why they had to kill 20 people .

Well , but they didn't mention that . It's just that they killed 20 people in the previous three years . Well , here we are , 10 plus years into their consent decree that they're bragging about , and in the last three years the defense the Albuquerque police probably has killed 30 people .

So it's actually increased 33 percent , probably because of the policies and procedures they had to implement , because of the DOJ . That makes things unsafe for everybody and we've seen that every time that sent decree happens . Use of force goes up , violence goes up . Every metric you don't want to go up goes up . Every metric you want to go down goes up .

It's the exact opposite . And I actually spoke to the president of Albuquerque's association and that would be coming out just a few days after this one . So you've got to check that out and let me tell you he had nothing good to say . He's lived it and he is terrified for the future of Albuquerque .

And you're trying to get in the middle of this , darrell , and say Phoenix , does it need this ? And you're down here at the end . You've now refused to sign it . What do you think the next thing the DOJ is going to do ? Because it appears now that they're not going to get a voluntary consent to destroy our city , right ?

So what do you think the DOJ's next move is ?

We even gave them a 53-page document that outlined all the stuff that the Phoenix Police Department has a history of fixing and reforming . If they're smart , what they do is they put down their concerns on a technical assistance letter . They have their press conference and they say you know what ? We came to Phoenix , we found this stuff .

But we're confident , in fact , that the Phoenix Police Department is doing the right thing and will continue to reform all on its own because it has a history of it and we are confident we'll check in with them in a couple years or whatever to see how it's coming

. But walk away . I think that's the best that they can hope for , because I think they can tout that as a win . The police department can tout that as a win .

We're not mindlessly spending tens of millions of dollars on oversight and unnecessary programs and things that the federal judge or the monitor might want to implement , and I think that's probably the best route . Now , whether they take that or not , it remains to be seen . Well , I tend to agree with you , darryl .

So the fact that you guys have done this over the last decade is really impressive . It makes your department look really good . In fact , in 2016 , the Attorney General of the United States said you were one of the finest departments in the country and all of a sudden , a few years later , they're investigating you for this . Who knows why ?

They just it's it and so , yeah , I think if they're smart , they would do that , but the DOJ has not released a technical assistance letter in over a decade . If you look at their history recently , they don't do that . They won't do that .

They're all about , like you said earlier , getting inside a department and controlling that agency and then impacting that community in a very negative way , and that may not be their intent . I believe they're probably true believers in this ideology . That head of the Civil Rights Division said that her goal is to reimagine police .

Well , yeah , they just don't tell you what that means , and I think we see it through 30 years of consent decrees . It doesn't mean much good for the community . But I don't think they'll do that . So there are other .

Options would be to continue to twist the arms of your politicians to get them to voluntarily sign it , which they clearly have said they would , and I think a official letter , a public letter to the DOJ , has climbed that out .

So the other option would be to file a federal lawsuit in front of a federal judge and that gets the motion going to where they would have to prove their case in court .

If that goes that route and I believe that's the route it will go if they make a decision this year , there's a possibility , with an election year in Arizona tends to be kind of important during presidential election years that they may just go silent for a year or so , who knows .

But if they do move forward and file a federal lawsuit , what do you see happening when they do that ?

But I think when it comes time to actually presenting the evidence of this pattern and practice that they claim to have , they're going to bring it back . They're going to withdraw that lawsuit because they don't have it . Because if they did have it and it was such a huge issue why wouldn't they have brought that to the department when they discovered it ?

Why would they allow a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing to continue while they're here investigating , keeping it secret , right ?

So they're not going to have the evidence to be able to provide to the judge or to the court , and I think what they'll do is they'll just simply try to make it life a little rough on us , but ultimately they're going to withdraw that lawsuit .

But here's a message I would give them and this is my prediction .

If they follow a lawsuit and I have studied this countless hours over the course of the last several years and I'm probably going to have to end up writing something on it to help other people out , because I've seen the success of what just a small bit of effort and things is made , so that's very encouraging .

But if they follow a lawsuit , here's the prediction and this is my message to the decision makers the DOJ cannot go to discovery in a lawsuit and , of course , discovery could take three , six , nine months . It takes a while . So the lawsuit being filed is nothing more than a bluff to try to scare the decision makers .

Because the DOJ can't go to discovery , because in discovery , all of that's out in the open . All of a sudden you see the investigation .

All of a sudden you see the methodology , all of a sudden the city thinks gets to rebut the investigation something no city's ever done , right , they just take it and go on with it and spend millions of dollars and so but that that discovery almost opens the develop of what they've done . And , like I said , I agree with you wholeheartedly .

If they had something , they would just show it . Evidence is evidence , it's pretty clear , you know . So I think any lawsuit is nothing more than they're not really serious about it .

Because here's the danger of the DLJ If they get to discovery and everybody finds out they had nothing , which is more than likely what they will find out well , the whole world then knows the game , right ? Oh , we try to bluff people when they're doing this without showing you what we have .

Or if they go all the way through the trial and lose , then there's no upside . So either they get to discovery and they're exposed Okay , or they go all the way through trial and they lose , which then sends the message to the rest of the country , or this would never occur . They get to trial and they win .

Well , that's still a downside of the DOJ , because Then the city of Phoenix can appeal federal takeover of a police department all the way to the US Supreme Court , and it's a direct violation of the 10th Amendment . It's clearly unconstitutional . If you read the 10th Amendment , it doesn't take a scholar to figure this out .

Federal government cannot control local entities . It's just as clear as day . The reason it's still in place is it's like any law until the law is challenged on constitutional grounds , it stays in place . Well , no one's ever taken the DOJ that far .

They usually get scared before that and they pull back , and so there's no upside whatsoever for the DOJ in the future , with the exception of trying to convince the decision makers to just sign it , and that is probably what's going to be going on hardcore from here until up to discovery . You have anything you disagree with about that ?

But I guarantee you it's less to defend a lawsuit that's frivolous than it is to enter into a consent decree and the amount of money that you have to spend up for to get it going , and then the yearly costs , you're going to be saving a ton of money by fighting .

And it's just amazing to me that an entity that is , you know , enticed with , you know , investigating departments are operating in this fashion , and I have no doubt that 30 years ago this was good , well-intentioned , right . But , man , there's a different philosophy , a different ideology now . That makes this one of the most destructive things that professions face .

And I can't thank you enough , darrell , for you know you're being a little modest here , but you're kind of a one-man pony here . Making all this operate and communication alone has gotten us to this point and you're the head of that . So the entire profession owes you gratitude .

And if someone was facing this now , darrell , someone's out there and they're afraid of the DOJ coming or they're under investigation . What advice would you give them ?

So talk to whoever talk to the media , talk to national leaders , talk to other people who are under a consent decree from , you know , union labor . Talk to mayors . I mean our mayor actually been out and contacted all the mayors that are currently under decree and had nothing good to say about decrees . So communication is the key

.

Today's just thinking the city's just going to sign up for a couple hundred million dollar bill without even reading it Right , and even fact , when they showed it , if they were able to show it to you , darrell . This is the other thing . When they do their press conference , if they do it , they're only going to show the public a summary report .

That's not the investigation I could have . I could summarize anything and make it sound one way Right . So that's the , that's the importance of sort of getting underneath that summary report . What do they actually know ? And you got to remember they're pulling from 10 years of information . I could look at any organization over the course of 10 years .

I can give you a few examples more than likely . So we know the game there . But Phoenix has done an incredible job laying the groundwork , because if Phoenix was not a good department , I wouldn't have you on the show right now , I wouldn't be talking about this right now .

I'm clearly enraged because I know how good of a department Phoenix has and they're still being bullied by this entity . That obviously doesn't have enough to do , and so that's the only reason I'm talking about it . But you guys did the right things .

You've laid the groundwork , you've been reforming , you've I mean you're probably forming more than I would even like , right I mean . So I mean you really go above and beyond to try to appease a lot of different entities , and some of it has certainly helped your agency , and you recognize that you can get better .

And the DOJ does nothing for that and ultimately , it's one of the weakest leadership things you could ever . You could ever do .

I'm thinking about it If you're in Phoenix right now and you've got a chief and you've got a command staff and you've got officers , and you've got supervisors , and you've got a mayor and you've got city counselors All of them have oversight over that police department , from your chief to your city counselors and and , and you pick the DOJ to come in and help

your department , you can't do it yourself . It's almost the biggest , weakest leadership decision . I've ever heard that we are welcoming the DOJ to a department because we have obviously failed . That's why you're welcoming there , so we obviously have the ability to correct us ourselves . We're the experts . Phoenix has shown that .

Your , your , your staff and that document is incredible . I'll put that in the show notes . I can't reiterate that . The show is exactly the improvements Phoenix has made and that certainly doesn't help the DOJ because you've almost , once again , strategic communication . You've told your public what you've done before the DOJ saying anything .

That certainly has to hurt their future efforts .

Roland Fryer , Harvard Economist , has done exhaustive studies on this , peer reviewed research . I mean literally by avoiding a consent decree , lives are saved . It's really unfortunate we're in a position of law enforcement where we don't have to talk about this Like this should be a hard no .

Every time the DOJ thinks they got you on something will take us to court and prove it , like everybody else has to do , and hopefully we can convince people and educate them enough to where I call it the Phoenix model right . All Phoenix did was communicate to their residents and communicate to their department exactly what this was .

And next thing you know we're sitting here talking about January 11th and whatever the future may be . So , Darrell , I can't thank you enough . I mean it has been . I never thought I would see it . I've seen so much destruction with these things I never thought anybody would stand up , and a lot of people in Phoenix have a lot to be proud of , Darrell .

I mean without those folks out there doing the job the right way every day , it wouldn't be easy to defend .

I know your organizations that supposedly support us aren't talking about , but that doesn't matter . We need to understand this completely , because this stuff is not going to go away anytime soon until we stand up and understand exactly what it's doing to our communities and it's not helping .

It was helping , we wouldn't be having the conversation , but it's certainly not helping . So , darrell , thank you so much for being here on the show .