| Mesa Police Department | |
|---|---|
| Agency overview | |
| Employees | 1,202 (2020) |
| Annual budget | $202 million (2021) [1] |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | Arizona, United States |
| Population | 508,979 (2018) |
| Legal jurisdiction | Mesa, AZ |
| Website | |
| www | |
The Mesa Police Department is the primary law enforcement agency in Mesa, Arizona. [2] The department employs 1,202 police officers. The department is headed by Chief Ken Cost. [3]
The Mesa police department has existed since 1880. [4]
In 1991, local newspapers reported on a wide-ranging sex scandal in the department. Various police officers seem to have been involved in the molestation of children and using their wives as bait to blackmail other members of the department. [5]
In 2016, a Mesa police officer, Philip Brailsford, shot Daniel Shaver five times and killed him in the hallway of a La Quinta Inn & Suites hotel in Mesa, while Shaver was on his hands and knees and following confusing and contradictory orders by the police. Brailsford was charged with second-degree murder and a lesser manslaughter charge, and found not guilty by a jury. [6] Prosecutors argued the shooting was unjustified. [7] Brailsford was reinstated in August 2018. Over a month later, he was granted retirement on medical grounds, as well as a pension of $2,500 per month. [8]
Then-Chief Ramon Batista resigned suddenly in 2019 after an attempt at reforms in the police department policies and training. [9]
A 2020 story by ABC News identified that "Mesa PD has a history of high-profile incidents involving excessive force" following the suspension of Officer Greg Clark. Assistant Chief Ed Wessing denied that problems existed in the force, while acknowledging that the public's trust was hurt. [10]
The department operates four stations: [16]
Mesa is a city in Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the most populous city in the East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by Tempe on the west, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on the north, Chandler and Gilbert on the south along with Queen Creek, and Apache Junction on the east.
In the United States, a SWAT team is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to handle riot control or violent confrontations with criminals, the number and usage of SWAT teams increased in the 1980s and 1990s during the War on Drugs and later in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the United States by 2005, SWAT teams were deployed 50,000 times every year, almost 80% of the time to serve search warrants, most often for narcotics. By 2015 that number had increased to nearly 80,000 times a year. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with military-type hardware and trained to deploy against threats of terrorism, for crowd control, hostage taking, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement, sometimes deemed "high-risk".
Williams Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force (USAF) base, located in Maricopa County, Arizona, east of Chandler, and about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Phoenix. It is a designated Superfund site due to a number of soil and groundwater contaminants.
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A SWAT vehicle, police armored vehicle, or police rescue vehicle is a non-military armored vehicle used by police tactical units to respond to incidents. They are most often in configurations similar to military light utility vehicles, infantry mobility vehicles, or armoured personnel carriers. They are generally designed to have armor that can sufficiently block high-caliber rounds, space to carry the unit's equipment, and sufficient passenger seating; some also allow for additional personnel to hang onto the side of the vehicle in transit.
The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the City and County of San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco International Airport in San Mateo County. In 2000, the SFPD was the 11th largest police department in the United States.
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The Puerto Rico Police Department, officially the Puerto Rico Police Bureau, is a law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the entire Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a division of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety (DPS), alongside the Puerto Rico Special Investigations Bureau and the Puerto Rico Municipal Police and handles both traffic and criminal law enforcement in the commonwealth. As of 2020, the Puerto Rico Police force had 11,532 members. It is organized into thirteen regions within the island for operational purposes. Its headquarters is located at 601 Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue in San Juan.
The Felony Investigative Assistance Team (FIAT) is a multi-jurisdictional police task force comprising 16 law enforcement agencies in Cook County, Illinois, and DuPage County, Illinois, ]. The taskforce covers approximately 300,000 residents in those jurisdictions. It is broken down into five units, four of which are staffed by assigned officers.
The St. Louis County Police Department (SLCPD) is the primary and largest law enforcement agency serving St. Louis County in the U.S. state of Missouri. The current Chief of Police is Colonel Kenneth Gregory. According to the Charter of St. Louis County, the county police chief has all of the criminal law enforcement duties of the sheriff of St. Louis County, except for the operation of the St. Louis County Jail, which is handled by the St. Louis County Department of Justice Services (civilian), court bailiff and service of civil process. Court bailiff/civil process duties are provided by a court-appointed sheriff and his employees, none of whom have law enforcement powers.
Phoenix–Mesa Gateway Airport, formerly Williams Gateway Airport (1994–2008) and Williams Air Force Base (1948–1993), is an international airport in the southeastern area of Mesa, Arizona, 20 miles southeast of Phoenix, in Maricopa County. The airport, owned and operated by the Phoenix–Mesa Gateway Airport Authority, is a reliever airport for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It is a base for Allegiant Air.
The Bakersfield Police Department (BPD) is the agency responsible for law enforcement within the city of Bakersfield, California, in the United States. It has over 590 officers and professional staff, covering an area of 151.2 square miles (392 km2) serving an urban population of more than 400,000. The current chief of the department, since April 2020, is Greg Terry. The department protects the city, split between two areas and six zones with two stations, the main department headquarters and the west side substation. The department administration is made up of the chief of department, two assistant chiefs, four captains and eleven lieutenants.
Metropolitan Division, commonly referred to as Metro Division or just Metro, is a division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) under its Special Operations Group. Metropolitan Division is responsible for managing the LAPD's specialized crime suppression, K-9, mounted, and SWAT units, named "platoons".
The Phoenix Police Department is the law enforcement agency responsible for the city of Phoenix, Arizona. As of October 2021, the Phoenix Police Department comprises just under 2,800 officers, some 350 below authorized strength of 3,125 and more than 1,000 support personnel. The department serves a population of more than 1.6 million and patrol almost 516 square miles (1,340 km2) of the fifth largest city in the United States. Phoenix has one of the highest rates of police killings in the United States.
The Tempe Police Department serves the city of Tempe, Arizona.
The Lenco BearCat is a wheeled SWAT vehicle designed for military and law enforcement use. It is in use by several military forces and law enforcement agencies around the world.
Operation Kruz Control was a twelve-month, multi-agency investigation of a drug trafficking organization in southern Arizona, between December 2012 and December 2013.
On January 18, 2016, Daniel Leetin Shaver of Granbury, Texas, was fatally shot by police officer Philip Brailsford in the hallway of a La Quinta Inn & Suites hotel in Mesa, Arizona. Police were responding to a report that a rifle had been pointed out of the window of Shaver's hotel room.