'Regardless of the DOJ': Phoenix's Homeless Policing Order Is Still a Draft, Six Months Past Its Deadline

On May 21, 2025, the Trump Justice Department closed its civil rights investigation of the Phoenix Police Department and retracted its own findings. Mayor Kate Gallego answered the same day with a promise: "I said many times that we would adopt reforms and see them through, regardless of the DOJ investigation, and I meant it."

Seventeen months later, that promise can be checked. Some of it holds. Some of it is still sitting in a folder marked draft.

The clearest test is the one the federal report cared about most. The DOJ found that Phoenix police arrested, cited and cleared homeless people without legal cause and threw away their belongings. The city's answer, a written policy on how officers deal with people experiencing homelessness, was scheduled to go live in April 2026. As of Oct. 20, the department's public policy library still lists Operations Order 1.3.03 as "Policy Under Revision," with every page of the posted version marked as a draft.

The investigation opened in August 2021. In June 2024, investigators released a 126-page report finding a pattern or practice of violations: excessive force, including unnecessary deadly force; discrimination against Black, Latino and Native American residents; retaliation against protesters; mistreatment of people with behavioral health disabilities; and unlawful treatment of homeless people. It came with 37 recommended remedies.

The homelessness finding was a first: the first time the DOJ had found a pattern of violations against homeless people in an American city, ProPublica reported. Homeless people made up 37% of Phoenix police arrests from 2016 to 2022, while accounting for less than 1% of the population.

Phoenix refused a consent decree, the court-enforced agreement with an independent monitor that other cities signed. In September 2024 the council unanimously adopted its own list of 37 action items instead.

In May 2025 Attorney General Pam Bondi withdrew the findings, saying they rested on "flawed methodologies and incomplete data."

Credit where the paper exists. By September 2025 the city said nearly 70 percent of the 37 items were complete, with the rest in progress. Among the things a reader can actually verify:

The civilian oversight office is working, too. In the first quarter of 2026 the Office of Accountability and Transparency carried 161 active review cases and released seven reports, six on police shootings. It had three unfilled positions, including its deputy director.

Three policies the city sent out for public comment, on homelessness, youth interactions and less-lethal tools, were all scheduled to take effect this spring. The homelessness order is the one the DOJ report was built around, and the public record shows it still under revision.

Even the draft is softer than the headlines it got. The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting found it would not ban officers from taking homeless people's property; it bars destroying it without consent while still allowing officers to move, impound or store it. One longtime advocate told Phoenix New Times its "may" and "shall" language gives the department "all the wiggle room" it needs.

The city also promised a Performance Compliance Team that would begin auditing police practices in early 2026. No audit results have been made public.

Chief Matt Giordano took over in late August 2025. Cronkite News counted 11 police shootings between the end of federal scrutiny and mid-October 2025, a pace of more than one a week after he arrived. Phoenix New Times counted 11 people killed by Phoenix police in 2025, and six more killed in 2026 through April 29.

Body cameras only work when switched on. This summer two South Mountain officers were fired and charged after a stop that produced no camera footage at all; one had been reprimanded in 2025 for not activating his camera. The Inquirer covered that case in "Phoenix PD Says Ghost Stops Are Banned. Its Own Dispatchers Caught One."

The city's case is real. It said its improvement work would not change when the DOJ walked away, and much of it did not: it kept publishing progress reports to the council and kept pushing behavioral health calls away from officers. Rep. Greg Stanton said the city "has acted in good faith to adopt substantial reforms." Phoenix Law Enforcement Association president Darrell Kriplean called the DOJ's retreat "a clear vindication for our city and our department." The city's own January 2024 review said it found nothing to support claims that police interfered with homeless people's possessions.

A slower policy may be a better one. But without a monitor, the only deadline is the one the city set for itself, and April has come and gone.

For the City of Phoenix and Mayor Kate Gallego: Which of the 37 items remain open as of today, and when is the next public update? Has the Performance Compliance Team completed any audit, and will it be released?

For the Phoenix Police Department: Is Operations Order 1.3.03 on homelessness in effect, and if not, what is the new date? Are the youth interactions and less-lethal policies in effect? How often do audits find officers failing to activate body cameras?

For the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association: Does the union support the homelessness policy as drafted, and did it seek changes?

Reported from public records and reporting through Oct. 20, 2026, including the city's council reports and news releases, the Office of Accountability and Transparency's first-quarter 2026 report, the department's policy library, and coverage by ProPublica, KJZZ, ABC15, Axios Phoenix, AZFamily, Cronkite News, Phoenix New Times, KTAR and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. We could not confirm whether the homelessness, youth or less-lethal policies took effect internally without being posted, and we have not found a public 2026 status update after January. We are looking for implementation memos, compliance audit results and body camera activation data. The City of Phoenix, the Phoenix Police Department and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association were asked for comment; responses will be added with a dated update. Tips: [email protected]. Corrections: [email protected].