Chloe Jones

In response to an Instagram post showing support for Black Lives Matter demonstrators, GOP justice of the peace candidate Michael Irish wrote that it was “time to start putting these idiots in their place.” Irish, who is running to be a justice of the peace in the Moon Valley district in north Phoenix, also said that Black Americans were actually to blame for the police violence against George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Dion Johnson and others that sparked nationwide Black Lives Matter protests calling for an end to systemic racism in policing.

A creative protest supporting the Black Lives Matters movement at Tempe Marketplace Saturday went from chalk art to chaos when Tempe police officers tackled three people to the ground and arrested them, while other officers used pepper spray on protesters who were obeying police commands to back up. Lisa Vu, who posted videos of what happened to her Instagram account, was filming as officers arrested and tackled a protester around 8 p.m. When she and Ryan Tice, another protester, asked the officers what the person was being arrested for, one responded, “None of your business.”

A peaceful protest of President Donald Trump outside of Dream City Church ended quickly Tuesday afternoon as the president spoke to some 3,000 attendees when Phoenix police officers fired flash-bang grenades, pepper balls and pepper spray into the crowd of more than 200 people, declaring it unlawful. The protest, organized by the W.E. Rising Project, walked from Cave Creek and Cactus roads in northeast Phoenix to the designated “free speech zone” surrounded by gates outside the church, about a half-mile away. After chanting in the zone, and running into about 10 counter-protesters,

Several hundred protesters descended on Tempe Thursday afternoon demanding the city defund the police by about $22 million and instead use the money to fund affordable housing, preschool and transit programs. As the protesters marched, they chanted, “The strategy is to defund the police, the goal is to abolish the police, and the attitude is

As thousands marched through Old Town Scottsdale Sunday evening, united to protest police brutality against minorities, their chants echoed off the shops and restaurants that line Scottsdale Road and the surrounding area: “Say their names!” “No justice, no peace!” “I can’t breathe!” The protest was one of several on the 11th consecutive night of demonstrations across Arizona, sparked by the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minnesota on May 25. That same day, Dion Johnson was shot and killed by a state trooper while sleeping in his car parked on the Loop 101 freeway. There has been little transparency from Phoenix Police Department, which is investigating the shooting, or the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and many questions remain about what happened that led an officer to shoot and kill the unarmed Johnson.