Action urged in MCAO scandal
Officials call for a review of the role Phoenix played in what went wrong at the County Attorney’s Office
Two members of the Phoenix City Council are calling on Mayor Kate Gallego to hold a meeting discussing the city’s relationship with the embattled Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Former County Attorney Alister Adel recently resigned after a tumultuous and scandal-plagued tenure. During Adel’s time in office, the County Attorney’s Office was accused of colluding with the Phoenix Police Department to “surveil, target, unlawfully arrest and maliciously prosecute” protesters in an effort to suppress criticism of law enforcement.
After Adel admitted she was seeking treatment for alcohol dependency, and five top prosecutors urged her to resign, the Arizona Republic exposed that the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office was forced to drop 180 criminal cases after it forgot to file charges for more than a year.
In a press release Monday, Phoenix Vice Mayor Laura Pastor and District 8 Councilmember Carlos Garcia said Adel “resigned amid numerous scandals, but it should not stop Phoenix City Council from looking at our own role in wrongdoings in coordination with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.”
“We cannot sweep this under the rug and Adel’s resignation should point to the severity of the situation,” Pastor and Garcia wrote. “The Phoenix City Council has a responsibility to hold a discussion on what happened with the cases of protesters who were wrongfully charged and to discuss the high-ranking city officials and representatives that have been implicated as well as what we must do next to ensure it does not happen again.”
Pastor and Garcia said they were calling directly on Gallego to hold a policy meeting on the matter because the Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee of the City Council had not done so.
In response, Mayor Kate Gallego said ongoing litigation would prevent the
city from taking part in a public discussion at this time.
“There have been multiple investigations into cases involving protesters in 2020,” Gallego said in a statement emailed to The Republic. “The previous city manager delivered significant discipline and enacted policy changes. The incident is also the subject of several multi-million-dollar lawsuits to which the City of Phoenix is a party. Because the court cases are ongoing, the city is restricted in its ability to publicly discuss these matters. Since the parties involved have chosen that route, we will need to complete the judicial process before engaging in a policy meeting on this subject.”
Have a news tip on the criminal justice system? Reach the reporter at jjenkins@arizonarepublic.com or at 812243-5582. Follow him on Twitter @JimmyJenkins.