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Elite Phoenix PD units under budget axe

One community activist is trying to prevent the budgetary shuffling that would send some of the agency’s top undercover investigators back to patrol

By Police1 Staff

PHOENIX — Budget cuts could soon have members of the Phoenix Police Department’s two most specialized units — the Violent Criminal Syndicate Crime Suppression Unit and the Career Criminals Squad — returning to patrol. These elite units are presently focused on gangs, neo-Nazis, and some of the most notorious, hardcore career criminals in the state of Arizona.

In a proposal put forward by department administrators, a sergeant and four detectives from the Career Criminals Squad would rotate back into patrol to fill gaps there, while investigators from other units pick up their cases.

“How do we expect another existing investigative department that’s already running at a 40 percent deficiency, to take on one more case,” asks Ann Malone, a Phoenix community activist who is spearheading a civilian effort to save the elite unit from the budget axe.

Malone, who makes her argument in a news segment aired today on KPHO TV, says that putting the highly-specialized units back onto patrol makes no sense.

On the KPHO website, Phoenix PD Cmdr. Chuck Miiler assures that the important work of these units will continued to be handled, saying: “We will have other detectives work the cases that this squad currently works on.”

The Phoenix City Council will vote on the proposal in two weeks.

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