Families demand county attorney release records in Phoenix area police shooting investigations

Families of police shooting victims gathered on Tuesday to demand the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office share reports of its investigations into those shootings.

The demands come as the U.S. Department of Justice investigates the Phoenix Police Department, in part because of a record spike of 44 police shootings in 2018, 23 of which were fatal.

As of August, Phoenix police fired their weapons in 22 cases, killing 10 people. By the same time last year, there were 21 shootings, eight of them fatal, according to data pulled from public reports and data provided by the department.

Denise Garcia, the mother of James Garcia, who died after being shot by Phoenix police in 2020, and Maria Martinez, the aunt of Juan Carlos Bojorquez, who was shot by Glendale police in 2022, spoke to a small crowd about an increased need for transparency from the county attorney.

Garcia told onlookers that it took almost three years and hundreds of calls to receive updates on the investigation the county attorney was conducting.

“Yesterday, I received a supposedly completed investigation from the County Attorney's Office that had been heavily redacted. So once again, I will ask, where is the transparency?” she said.

The Garcia family filed a claim against Phoenix in December 2020 in response to the death of James Garcia after he was shot by police officers who were responding to a call about a stabbing.

Garcia was in his car, and officers misidentified him as their suspect. Garcia carried a gun in his car, and when officers saw it, they told him to get out of the car. Officers shot Garcia when they believed he was reaching for the gun, according to police records.

Martinez echoed some of Garcia's points and demanded the records of her nephew’s death from a year ago.

”We demand MCAO to release the investigative file on my nephew's death. Will my family ever get the justice we deserve for the murder of our child?“ she said.

Bojorquez was 15 when he died after Glendale police shot him while looking for a stolen car.

Police said Bojorquez and one other person were in the suspected stolen car. An undercover Glendale police officer, not wearing a body camera, shot the teen. Police claimed that during a struggle, Bojorquez was reaching for a gun. It was not clear what prompted the struggle.

Buckeye police are investigating the Bojorquez shooting and said that normally the next step would be to prepare the records for release. Buckeye police did not provide a timeline for that.

'We will fight': Family, lawyer decry man's fatal shooting by Phoenix police

The county attorney has reviewed 202 police shootings since 2020 and filed charges in one.

In February, a former Mesa police officer faced endangerment charges after shooting at a fleeing car.

The bodycam footage used by police and part of the County Attorney’s Office reviews of police shootings has led to more officers being taken to court, though it has had an uncertain effect on preventing shootings to begin with.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell responded to the families’ demands.

"I think one of the things that people are not understanding about that is we are not an investigative agency. So, we rely on the investigation of the police agency," she said in reference to police shootings.

The County Attorney's Office can investigate but it is rare that it ever does, according to Communications Director Jeanine L'Ecuyer. If more information is needed while prosecutors review a police investigation, they will send the case back to the police agency instead of conducting their own investigation.

Mitchell also explained that the County Attorney’s Office had provided available paper documents to the family in reference to the documents Garcia had received earlier in the week.

L'Ecuyer also said that before Mitchell's administration, there had been a backlog of cases needing to be passed to families and that the agency is now working to address them. She did not provide specifics, but in May, Mitchell reported her agency had halved the backlog of all types of cases.

On Tuesday, state Sen. Anna Hernandez also took the podium to speak about the death of her brother, Alex Hernandez, in 2019 after Phoenix police responded to a violation of an order of protection.

She claimed that his death and the lack of information shared with her family prompted her to run for office.

Even with her understanding of government, she said her family is still waiting for documents.

“We know that the shootings will not stop, and next week we will have a new family that is now navigating this tragic and traumatic experience,” she said. “There will be a new family that will be looking for answers but will not receive those.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix, Glendale families seek records, answers in police shootings