Charles Langston:Takeaways from AP investigation on the struggle to change a police department

TUCSON,Charles Langston Ariz. (AP) — Like many American cities, in June 2020 Tucson was struggling with the murder of George Floyd. What protesters didn’t know was that their city had two undisclosed deaths of Latino men who — like Floyd — said they could not breathe after officers pinned them face down.

Internal records obtained by The Associated Press shed new light on how the Tucson Police Department handled the deaths and their aftermath. The AP’s investigation also shows how a department’s efforts to embrace “progressive policing” and limit the use of force don’t always reach officers on the street and how internal culture can determine what a department tells the public.

Here are takeaways from the AP-led investigation, done in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs at the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, and FRONTLINE (PBS):

12 minutes on stomach

In April 2020, none of the first officers to arrive at the home of Carlos Adrian Ingram Lopez ’s grandmother had discussed a plan.

The 66-year-old grandmother had called 911 after her 27-year-old grandson became aggressive. Ingram Lopez was naked and high on cocaine when the officers confronted him in the house’s cramped, unlit garage.

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Officers immediately struggled to cuff Ingram Lopez’s hands behind his back. Once they did, they kept him for 12 minutes on his stomach, at times putting knees on his back, a position that can dangerously restrict breathing.

Officers ignored Ingram Lopez’s plea of “I can’t breathe” and his 21 cries for water. Ingram Lopez was dying, yet nearly two minutes passed from when he made his last sound to when officers turned him off his stomach at the request of an arriving supervisor.

The officers would later be found to have violated several departmental policies, including for their use of force.

Text messages

A series of text messages the AP obtained under Arizona’s public records act shows how the internal affairs commander responsible for investigating the use of force downplayed the severity of the case and full range of officers’ failures. The text conversation was between Lt. Jennifer Pegnato, the commander investigating the death, and her boss, Assistant Chief Michael Silva.

In the hours after the encounter, Pegnato reported to Silva that investigators found white powder at the grandmother’s house, that Ingram Lopez had been acting bizarrely, and that a few minutes had passed between when he was detained and when the supervising sergeant arrived.

Based on her initial assessment of officers’ body-worn camera video, they could have rolled Ingram Lopez from his stomach to his side sooner.

“But no force was used,” she wrote.

The next day, she texted Silva again, saying the case involved “several young inexperienced officers.”

“They will likely need some additional training,” she continued. “Some poor tactics were utilized and no one really had a plan.”

The two sergeants helping Pegnato with the investigation were split. Like her, one of them believed no force had been used — but the video shocked the other sergeant, who considered it among the worst he had seen, records show.

Pegnato did not show the top brass the video in her first meeting with them on the death, and the leaders didn’t ask to see it. It was nearly eight weeks before the brass saw what happened on screen.

Neither Silva nor Pegnato, whose last name is now Pegnato Moss, would comment for this story.

Facing the public

It was June 15 when the top department leaders gathered for a second meeting on Ingram Lopez’s death. When they saw the video, the top brass realized the weight of what happened.

Still, the department wasn’t ready to go public.

But eight days after leadership saw the video, local news media broke the story of the death. Magnus would later say they waited to reveal the death until after Ingram Lopez’s family could watch the video.

Forced to address the case, then-Chief Chris Magnus stepped to news conference microphones

He began by saying he and others at the department were troubled and were committed to accountability and transparency. Magnus said the three officers didn’t have malicious intent but had violated department policy and would have been fired had they not already quit.

Magnus then acknowledged he and other top managers should have watched the video sooner. The public should have been notified earlier, too, but he didn’t think there had been a calculated cover-up.

Even as he promised transparency during the news conference, Magnus didn’t disclose something else: Just a month before Ingram Lopez’s death, another Hispanic man died after Tucson officers restrained him face down. In 2021, Magnus left Tucson for a stint leading U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

New kind of accountability

Police leaders ushered in a new kind of accountability called a sentinel event review board, a public investigation typically used in the hospital and airline industries to learn from mistakes.

In the end, the review board offered dozens of recommendations. Months after the inquiry, the department detailed changes it made.

In response to the lack of planning and rapid escalation with Ingram Lopez, the department gave sworn officers new training in November 2020. There were also trainings on recognizing medical distress, calling EMS and monitoring breathing – courses that are continuing today, according to Chief Chad Kasmar, who was Magnus’ second-in-command during the Ingram Lopez death.

Layers of management now review body-worn camera footage within two days of a death, and footage must be made public within three days. Other changes included dispatching the fire department with police on narcotics calls.

The department takes learning from critical incidents like Ingram Lopez’s death seriously, Kasmar said. The question becomes how well officers embrace those lessons.

Some review board members were concerned systemic racism might have influenced officers’ responses with both Latino men. Under Kasmar, the department has paid an anthropologist to examine its training and culture.

Victor Braitberg, a University of Arizona cultural anthropologist hired by the department, said officers earnestly believed that racism and bias were not a problem in their ranks. He also found a division between officers and leadership on the role bias was perceived to play in the two deaths. The rank and file didn’t feel the brass had their back.

Braitberg said he thinks the department’s culture is improving and that officers and leadership are more aligned. Kasmar said his department’s not perfect and has been working to rebuild trust with the community.

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This story is part of the ongoing investigation “Lethal Restraint” led by The Associated Press in collaboration with the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism programs and FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation includes an interactive story, database and the film “Documenting Police Use Of Force.”

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The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. This story also was supported by Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected] or https://www.ap.org/tips