By Emily Bittner, The Arizona Republic
Phoenix police asked the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office on Wednesday to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against two police officers for their actions caught on videotape during the arrest of a 22-year-old assault and carjacking suspect on Tuesday.
The 12 News video shows officers hitting and elbowing Jaime Jimenez, a Mexican national who was already handcuffed. Jimenez is accused of assaulting and robbing a pregnant woman at gunpoint outside a supermarket near 43rd Avenue and McDowell Road.
Phoenix police are conducting an internal investigation into the incident and will forward their report to the County Attorney’s Office when it’s complete.
Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris said he was troubled by the images captured in the videotape.
“That’s not what I expect out of my officers from what I’ve seen so far of the tape,” Harris said. Because the incident is still under investigation, Harris said, “I don’t want to make a judgment, but it certainly, in my opinion, could have been handled differently.”
Meanwhile, some Hispanic leaders said that such behavior can’t be condoned.
“If I went out and did that . . . it would absolutely be criminal conduct,” said attorney Stephen Montoya, who called a description of the incident a classic case of assault and battery. “Just because a police officer does it doesn’t make it trivial.”
Montoya worries that the incident will promote some of the community’s stereotypes of police officers.
“It’s just a horrible thing for the community,” he said. “It validates all of the worst opinions of the police department. It’s horrible on the police. It’s horrible on the families of the officers involved.”
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said that when he first saw the video, he was relieved that the pregnant victim was safe and that the suspect had stopped driving on the sidewalk and near a school bus.
“The police department saved her life and prevented harm to others,” Gordon said.
He added that the incident “raises concerns” about excessive force, but said he doesn’t want to make any conclusions until the review is completed.
According to police descriptions of the two officers, the video shows:
• Officer Steven Huddleston, 31, lunging into Jimenez, who appears to be facing a wall, with his hands in the air;
• An officer striking Jimenez in the upper body;
• An officer putting his foot on Jimenez’s midsection;
• Officer Thomas Beck, 32, holding his fist on Jimenez’s neck, putting a large amount of weight on it;
• Beck punching him in the groin after rolling him in the dirt while searching his pockets;
• Huddleston, 31, standing on the back of Jimenez’s left knee;
• Huddleston elbowing Jimenez in the face as he was walked to the patrol car.
Jimenez suffered no serious injuries, police said, and was booked into a Maricopa County jail on charges of kidnapping, armed robbery and assault.
Julian Claudio Nabozny, the co-chairman of the police department’s Hispanic Advisory Board, said that community leaders were pleased with the thoroughness of two recent police investigations: one into a neighborhood dispute and the other into Assistant Chief Silverio Ontiveros, the department’s highest-ranking Hispanic.
Ontiveros was reassigned Wednesday to the lower-ranking position of commander in part because Harris said he lacked leadership skills and credibility. Police also cleared two officers of allegations that they helped federal immigration agents detain, arrest and deport Hispanics in the Palomino neighborhood.
Nabozny believes that Tuesday’s incident will be investigated as thoroughly as those two were.
“I hope and I trust that the police will follow the same procedures when they investigate the allegations of the situation,” said Nabozny, a small-business owner.He said the advisory board would withhold judgment on the situation until the investigation is finished.
Montoya has sued the city several times over the last decade for cases involving police misconduct. He has also defended officers accused of misconduct.
“I can understand losing your temper when someone runs, because they endanger lives,” he said. “They’re not necessarily evil guys. When you work the streets dealing with tough guys, you get to be a tough guy.”
Huddleston, a 5-year Phoenix officer, and Beck, an 8-year officer, are assigned to the city’s Maryvale Precinct. Both train new officers in the field and remain assigned to their normal duties. In Huddleston’s 2003 performance evaluation, when he was a school resource officer at Pueblo del Sol Middle School, his supervisor wrote in a work performance evaluation that Huddleston didn’t meet expectations for professionalism. Both officers’ evaluations were satisfactory otherwise.
Police want to maintain the Hispanic communities’ confidence.
“We hope that there would be no single one event that would undo the progress we have made establishing trust with those communities,” said Sgt. Randy Force, a spokesman for the department. “We’re asking people of all colors in Phoenix to allow our investigators to do their job and to be assured that the officers will be treated appropriately at the end of the investigation.”