Phoenix leaders approved $19.8 million in police pay hikes, although some residents and community groups called for better ways to use the money.
Two years after thousands of residents descended on Phoenix streets to protest police brutality and call on the city to divert money from police, some of the same activists were outside City Hall on Tuesday to condemn pay raises for officers.
"We're embarrassed weekly on the nightly news, we pay out millions in lawsuits," he said about the Police Department."We continue to prioritize and fund this department and then expect them to do things that they're simply not trained for, and the results have unfortunately been loss of life."U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the department
The new pay scales will take effect Aug. 8 and apply to all sworn ranks of new hires and existing officers, including the police chief. police Chief Jeri Williams, who will retire this summer after five years in the jobBut numerous residents showed up on Wednesday to call on the council to reject the raises, asking what message it sent that a police department under federal investigation is rewarded with hefty raises.
It's likely the city will have to pull funds from outside the current police budget to maintain those pay scales in the coming years once the vacancy savings dry up, although no new money is being used to fund the raises for the time being.