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Family Threatened by Phoenix Police Rejects Apology as a ‘Sham’

A department with a record number of shootings last year was shown on video aiming a gun in a shoplifting case. Critics say officers routinely blame residents for their use of force.

Police officers in Phoenix stopped a family after receiving a report of shoplifting. The city’s mayor condemned the officers’ response.

The video that surfaced last week showing police officers in Phoenix drawing their guns and screaming threats at an African-American family while responding to a shoplifting complaint has once again raised questions about why officers in the city are so quick to use potentially deadly force. At one point, one of the officers threatened to shoot the 22-year-old father in the head in front of his two small children.

But while much of the coverage — and the official apologies — focused on the officers’ treatment of the family, critics of the police department say the episode also points to its tendency to give selective or misleading accounts that put the blame on residents.

Last year, Phoenix had 44 police shootings, far more than any other city of its size. Community groups and others say that a tendency to blame citizens — even when video or other evidence has called the police response into question — allows the city’s political leadership and police department to avoid confronting the underlying problem.

The police report of the incident portrays the two parents, Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper, as being slow to comply, yelling at officers, and making movements that looked like they might have been reaching for weapons. But the couple says that is not true, and that an officer pushed Mr. Ames’s head onto the hot pavement, threw his head against the car, kicked him in the leg so hard that he collapsed, and punched him in the back even though he was obeying their orders.

At a news conference on Monday afternoon, a lawyer for the couple, Tom Horne, a former Republican attorney general of Arizona, said that the couple had been “compliant 100 percent of the time.” Mr. Horne filed a notice of a $10 million lawsuit against the city.

The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, a spokesman for the family, said apologies issued by the mayor and the chief of police were not accepted, calling them “a sham, and lacking all substance.”

It was not the first time that the police in Phoenix have been accused of providing a misleading story. Here are three cases where the police accounts did not match evidence that later emerged:

Jan. 4, 2017

What they said: The police told local news outlets that Mohammed Muyhamin had assaulted an employee at a community center where he had sought to use the bathroom.

What the evidence shows: While the police refused to provide records of the investigation or medical examiner’s report, the 128-page police report said Mr. Muyhamin was merely arguing over whether he could bring his small service dog inside the community center without a leash. The physical confrontation described in the report was a claim that Mr. Muyhamin had “pushed past” an employee at the center because he needed to get to the restroom.

A witness cited in the medical examiner’s report said that when Mr. Muyhamin said he couldn’t breathe, one of the officers replied, “Then stop resisting.”

June 12, 2018

What they said: A police spokesman asserted that an officer fired because Mr. Andrich had “advanced” on the officer while holding an object that the officer “believed was a threat.” The police also said that the officer had “stepped back,” away from Mr. Andrich, before firing.

What the evidence shows: In a bystander’s video, Mr. Andrich, who suffered from schizophrenia, can be seen walking away from the officer, briefly turning to face him, and then seeming to turn back away when he was shot. The video shows the officer continuing to walk toward Mr. Andrich while he fired. The object in Mr. Andrich’s hand should not have been a mystery to police, either: it was one end of a set of handcuffs that officers had just put on one of his wrists.

Aug. 5, 2018

What they said: The police claimed self-defense, saying that after a pursuit, Mr. Brown charged at an officer and tried to get his gun, even managing to touch it before the officer shot him.

What the evidence shows: None of Mr. Brown’s D.N.A. was found on the weapon, the authorities later disclosed. And the police failed to mention a key detail: Mr. Brown had been shot in the back so, critics said, he could not have been charging the officer.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. is a New York-based correspondent, covering domestic terrorism and military stories. Since joining The Times 1999, he has been a business reporter, the Dallas correspondent, a Washington reporter and did several rotations in the Middle East.

  More about Richard A. Oppel Jr.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: In Phoenix, Another Case Of Police Shifting the Blame. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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