Just before Scottsdale police opened fire on Jason Prostrollo, the former Marine appeared in the doorway of a friend's home holding two halves of a pool cue as he walked toward police.

"I saw a very methodical slow paced walk, like he knew what he was doing coming at us and he was gonna take us on," Lt. Ron Bayne told investigators following the Jan. 28 shooting. The incident was outlined in a 244-page police report released last week.

Bayne used his .40-caliber Glock pistol to shoot and kill the 25-year-old Prostrollo after police were called to the north Scottsdale home of Prostrollo's friends.

The friends had called police because Prostrollo was drunk and threatening the homeowner with a large hunting knife.

Bayne, a 19-year police veteran, told investigators that he has been in many situation where using deadly force was a potential option.

"We've given commands and people have complied. There was never an indication in my mind that (Prostrollo) had any intention of complying at all," Bayne said.

The day after the shooting, a police spokesman said officers could not use a Taser on Prostrollo because of windy conditions. The report says the officers were armed with Tasers and several officers mention windy conditions that night, however the report does not specify that is the reason a Taser was not used.

As Prostrollo walked toward officers, he made "karate-type moves" using the sticks, Bayne said.

Another officer described Prostrollo coming out in a stick-fighter position, with a stick in each hand on his sides.

Sgt. KC Moore told investigators that another officer was giving Prostrollo commands to stop, but Prostrollo did not listen.

"He had a very piercing stare. Almost like, I don't know if I wanna call a death stare, but he wasn't paying attention to what we were saying," Moore said.

As Prostrollo continued walking toward officers, the K-9 officer, who was giving Prostrollo commands to stop, yelled that he was going to release his dog.

At the same time, Moore said he heard two loud pops, which was Bayne firing his weapon.

Bayne's bullets hit Prostrollo, killing him and hitting the dog, which was taken to an animal hospital and survived.

How it all started

The incident began the night before at Ernie's Restaurant and Bar, 10443 N. Scottsdale Road.

Prostrollo's friends, a 50-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, had known Prostrollo for about six months. Their names are redacted in the report.

The couple told police that they went to Erine's about 10:30 p.m. Jan. 27 to play pool and have some drinks. There, they ran into Prostrollo, who had told them he was a former Marine and had served in Iraq.

"That night, Jason was drinking but did not seem to be impaired," the 50-year-old man told police.

Later, the couple invited Prostrollo back to their house to play pool.

The three left Ernie's shortly after midnight and drove to the home in the 12000 block of north 135th Place.

A few hours later, the girlfriend went to bed and by this time, Prostrollo appeared to be drunk, different and more aggressive in his storytelling, the report states.

"Jason kept pouring himself more drinks, Jack Daniels and getting very liberal with the drinks," the man said.

About 3 a.m., the man called a cab for Prostrollo.

The cab arrived about 30 minutes later, and Prostrollo, who was unable to walk straight or complete his sentences, got in the cab, the man told police.

About 4 a.m., the cab driver called 911 to say that 10 minutes earlier, a man had held a knife to his neck and forced him to drive back to the house on 135th Place.

About 10 minutes later, the doorbell rang and someone was banging on the front door, the man told police.

He saw it was Prostrollo, and he allowed him into the foyer.

"Jason was at the front door and was very animated, talking nonsense and paranoid."

Prostrollo was rambling about his brother, his mission in the Marines and stating, "You know what you did."

The man offered to call another cab for Prostrollo and asked him to leave.

"I could see this guy was not all there right now," the man told police.

At about the same time, the 33-year-old woman called 911. She told the dispatcher that she had locked herself in the bathroom because a friend was threatening her boyfriend with a knife.

She heard her boyfriend call out her name, so she walked outside to the foyer and saw Prostrollo standing in the kitchen holding a large military-style bowie knife with a round handle and large silver blade. She saw Prostrollo put the knife down and she ran out of the house, where police met her.

Police then called the boyfriend on his cellphone and told him to exit the house. He complied. Moments later, Prostrollo exited the house. He was wearing a white tank top with his dog tags around his neck. The girlfriend told officers that Prostrollo was a former military man who possibly had post-traumatic stress disorder. Prostrollo's father later confirmed the diagnosis for The Republic.

"The subject has something in his left hand that looked like a pool stick. In his right hand he had something that looked like a darkened barrel of a rifle, just the barrel. Both objects appeared to be the same length. The subject had his hands raised up near his head holding the two objects," the report states.

Officer Anthony Sanborn, the K-9 officer, was instructed to give commands.

"At a point when it was clear that he wasn't listening to Sanborn, I started giving my own commands," Bayne said.

When Prostrollo reached about 7 yards away, Bayne said he fired two rounds without pause.

"From all my years of training ... with his level of violence that (Prostrollo) had displayed all night, it was clear to me that he wasn't gonna comply with our commands and he had every intent to hit one of our officers," Bayne said. "And I believe that that would've caused life-threatening injuries if he would have been successful with that."

SCOTTSDALE, AZ - New people are coming forward and talking about run-ins with the same Scottsdale officer who has been involved in seven police shootings.

Read the police report.

Megan Fells was with her boyfriend and their friend, Andrew Thomas, when Officer James Peters stopped them on Brown Avenue.

The police report Peters wrote said he first noticed the trio jaywalking, then stopped when he saw their license plate light not working.

Fells doesn’t think they were jaywalking and said she still has the same license plate light.

She said things quickly escalated when Thomas, who was sitting in the back seat, questioned Peters why he had to show his identification.

"If you don't give me your [expletive] I’m going to pull you out of the car and take it from you,” Fells recalled Peters said in the exchange.

Fells said Peters was screaming and yelling in her boyfriend’s face, who was driving the car.

"He most definitely has an anger issue. I didn’t hear a peep from the other officers. He [Peters] pretty much ran the show,” she said.

ABC15 checked out the police report and the stories were similar, except the situation seemed under control.

*****WEAR BLACK FOR THE VICTIMS*****

There is nothing that can justify what happened. We call on anyone who is fed up with the police state, the authoritarian justification of this action and the conspiracy to protect an officer that has killed six humans to march on the Scottsdale PD headquarters Friday the 17th and demand that:

Officer James Peters be fired immediately
Officer James Peters be charged with murder
The top brass of the Scottsdale PD be investigated for conspiracy

We demand justice immediately.

Meet at the Northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Indian School at 7 PM and march to the Scottsdale PD where demands will be read.

A just-released audit of the Maricopa Police Department showed 54 percent of citizens surveyed put the department's reputation at "poor to unsatisfactory."

"There was room for improvement here," said Brenda Fischer, who took over as city manager in May.

Fischer ordered the audit in response to complaints from citizens and employees. The review was conducted by Citygate Associates, LLC, and cost $42,000.

"We've struggled through some morale problems," said Fischer. "This audit allows us to be aligned and headed in the same direction."

She pledged accountability and transparency, starting with the audit that looked at nearly 200 internal affairs investigations over more than three years.

The review found employees had "little confidence" in internal affairs investigations, and many of the investigations dragged on too long.

Auditors recommended an independent third party review of these cases to "re-establish confidence."

Auditors also flagged an unusually high number of citizen complaints, writing that the department's been called the "last-chance department" for hiring officers with prior problems or credibility issues.

"I'm not a second-chance chief. I'm here because I feel that this city and police department has huge potential," said Chief Steve Stahl, of the Maricopa Police Department.

Stahl took over this week after serving as interim chief the past few months.

They are striving and starved to do good work. We need to give them a chance," said Stahl.

Stahl said he plans to change schedules soon to hold daily briefings with patrol officers to improve communication. Currently, officers work 12-hour shifts, three days a week – a schedule that does not allow for a briefing at the beginning of an officer's shift.

He also said he has an open-door policy, which he believes has made a difference already within the department.

As for the internal investigations, he said they don't know yet whether they'll take another look on their own or call in outside help to review the cases.

http://www.kpho.com/story/16937701/new-audit-flags-problems-with-maricopa-pd-internal-investigations?google_editors_picks=true

Phoenix May Day Meeting

That is why we will still be committed to building an even stronger base of resistance. ADOT has been told no in the past. Yet they have been incapable of truly respecting the opinion of communities. This has been a proposal for more than thirty years now. This may only mean that other communities are at a greater risk.

We will be having a more public meeting in the weeks to come. Until the Loop 202 expansion has been fully canceled we will continue to organize.
Please see this longer statement from earlier today:
Until it Matches the Need to End this Unneeded Expansion of ADOT’s.

Also please read this and the other past zines on resistance to the freeway: NO LOOP 202

Yes: 603 (in favor of on-reservation alignment)
No: 158 (in favor of off-reservation alignment)
NO BUILD: 720 (no freeway built at all)
NO BUILD WON!

District by district breakdown, as well as absentee ballots:
GRIC unofficial breakdown!!

D-1 Yes: 43
No: 18
No build: 71

D-2 Yes: 13
No: 4
No build: 47

D-3 Yes: 116
No: 25
No build: 119

D-4 Yes: 85
No: 31
No build: 141

D-5 Yes: 105
No: 25
No build: 119

D-6 Yes: 112
No: 36
No build: 155

D-7 Yes: 85
No: 10
No build: 22

Abs Yes: 44
No: 9
No build: 46

Totals Yes: 603
No: 158
No build: 702
Voted: 1481

A year ago the “No Build” option for the Loop 202 extension was a somewhat well kept secret of ADOT. However, today the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) is voting on three different options, including NO BUILD, regarding the freeway.

The Loop 202 extension has been defeated by GRIC twice in the past; once in 2000 and again in 2005. Members of Awhatukee have also organized against the freeway and won.

The unfounded notion of this proposal has been hanging over the heads of numerous communities since the 80’s. The question that arises once again today is whose head will the cloud burst over? It’s safe to say that the Loop 202 extension project has sat idle for more than 30 years now because it is a poorly constructed and unneeded proposal.

As one GRIC member stated at the January Citizens Transportation Oversight Committee (CTOC) meeting, “We [the Gila River Indian Community] are not here to solve the growth problems of the Phoenix area.” She later continued to address how so much of their land has already been taken. These few sentences state what everyone opposing this freeway are up against.

The repercussions of unsustainable development is blowing up in everyone’s faces. Urban sprawl has gone so far unchecked it is almost impossible to correct now. Instead of the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) and ADOT swallowing their pride and admitting that yes, they have spent these past thirty years flushing money into a bad idea, they instead invest even more public dollars and time into the Loop 202 extension. All this, while we witness a corrupt Phoenix City Councilman take advantage of insider information on the freeway.  Current District 6 Councilman Sal DiCcicio was paid by ADOT in 2006, before being a Councilman, to push GRIC to accept the freeway on their land.  Then, the following year he signed a lease to develop 75 acres of land at Pecos and 40th St. right next to where the freeway would be built (on or off GRIC land).  Talk about conflict of interests!

Across the state we see it with the NAFTA CANAMEX freeway. We see it in Tucson with the attempted expansion of the I-10 (that has seen continued community resistance and even the lengths of drastic property damage). It looms nearer and nearer with the attempted widening of the I-17 in the central and northern parts of Phoenix. When will this harmful expanding stop?

ADOT has freeway plans for the next 30 years. When a member of the CTOC asked about sustainability within that plan, the presenter acted bewildered that the notion of “sustainability” would be feasible in any way.

That is where so much of the problems we currently face reside. It doesn’t appear that forethought for today’s actions and their effects on the land and people tomorrow fit into an economic package. Cultural genocide, environmental degradation, and racism cannot be offset. Phoenix has reached its tipping point and unless we pay attention to it now, the future will no longer be capable of supporting us.

Regardless of GRIC’s Tuesday vote outcome, we promise to continue the fight against the Loop 202 and all other frivolous attachments of the colonial genocidal urban sprawl mentality. We know that ADOT will continue to exhaust all of its resources–financial and natural–for this and other roads. We recognize that the problems with the Loop 202 originate with a systemic curse of greed that began more than 500 years ago.

We see this as none other than an extremely coercive effort by ADOT to once again pressure members of GRIC to accept the freeway. Sad but true, ADOT’s attempted onslaught of communities persists. We are energized to say we will continue our resistance to it. And we further state that we will continue to organize even stronger until it matches the need to end this unneeded expansion of ADOT’s.

Dear CTOC, What part of Sacred Don’t You Understand?

WE WILL HAVE A NEWER UPDATE ON A STATEMENT OF FURTHER RESISTANCE  TO THE LOOP 202 OUT SOON! HERE IS REPORT BACK FROM THE LAST CTOC MEETING! WE HOPE YOU ENJOY.
January 24, 2012, a group of more than 3-dozen Loop 202 resisters united to confront the Citizens Transportation Oversight Committee (CTOC) at their first meeting of 2012.  A portion of the resisters travelled from the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), the community that would be most effected by the current proposal. Community members from Phoenix and surrounding cities also amassed to bring their heartfelt messages to the heartless CTOC.

Why the CTOC?
The CTOC is a group of individuals elected by the Governor and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. This board holds the power (over the people) to convey and recommend messages pertaining to the allocation of state transportation funding and planning. They work hand-in-hand with other bureaucratic politicians such as the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) (which saw a strong community presence at their January 14, 2012 transportation committee meeting), Governor Brewer, and the director of the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). Conveniently enough, Chairpersyn Roc Arnett of CTOC is also a voting member of MAG.

At 3pm there was a high-energy rally held outside of the 206 S. 17th Ave. ADOT building, where the CTOC meeting was to be held. The entire block was host to numerous large banners, chalking of sidewalks, chants through a megaphone and other visible signs of resistance. Many Indigenous Dine’ and O’odham youth and Elders from Gila River were there to drive an often intentionally left out point of view to ADOT.
The rally eventually snaked around to the adjacent block. As they marched to the entrance their footsteps echoed to the chant of “What do we want?” “No Loop 202” “When do we want it?” “NOW!”

A strong spirit of confrontation filled the air and continued as the large group took their energy toward the building entrance. They lined the main walkway with banners, their chants reverberating through the courtyard. As the group lined in front of the entrance, a DPS officer aggressively barked orders declaring they could not block the door with their banners. He was answered with the chant: “No more needless roads! People need their fucking homes!” The same officer then got in the face of one of the protesters but was shouted down with the chant: “What part of Sacred don’t you understand?”

 
As the community members entered and advanced toward the meeting room with their banners they were told banners were not allowed. One of the resisters yelled inside that a border patrol checkpoint was being erected just like in the Tohono O’odham Nation. No laws were cited and upon request, once again, officers on duty refused to identify themselves while serving at a public meeting.

INSIDE THE CHAMBERS OF THE HEARTLESS BEAST
Leading up to the meeting the head of the CTOC approached one of the Gila River Community members and attempted to dissuade her from filling out two comment cards. This same tactic was used at the November CTOC meeting to make it impossible for the voice of the O’odham community to be heard at the meeting. It was demanded that he stop providing misinformation and to discuss this during the meeting as part of public record.

The public-comment period of the meeting was utilized by more than 15 different people opposed to the Loop 202 proposal.  Although the committee repeatedly insisted the Loop 202 extension was not on the agenda, it fit in with three agenda items. Within the comment period for these items people addressed their animosity and full rejection of the Loop 202.
The meeting opened with a public comment period packed to the brim with disgust for the Loop 202. In general, the spirit of the rally was transferred into the auditorium as the Loop 202 resisters dominated the majority of the meeting.  An assortment of varying comments were given by GRIC members, elders, as well as concerned community members representing most of the valley’s major cities.
Youth and elders from the community spoke to their personal experiences with health problems due to pollution, their necessity to maintain autonomy from the state, and a demand to protect sacred sites. Promises were made by all to fight until the freeway proposal is entirely dismantled.

The next agenda item commented on by Loop 202 resisters was the “Approval of the Minutes” from the CTOC meeting on November 15, 2011. GRIC members and other opponents spoke to their enragement that the Loop 202 had yet to been placed on the agenda, after it was demanded by GRIC members at the previous meeting that it be added to the agenda for the January meeting. It was also brought up how GRIC members were not allowed to speak at the November meeting.

The level to which the CTOC consistently ignores the demands of its constituents highlights its members’ blatant disregard for anything that doesn’t lead to the lining of their pockets.

During the “Five Year Performance Audit of the Maricopa County Regional Transportation Plan” agenda item, many approached the mic to share their discontent with the environmentally racist and harmful cultural, ecological, and physical repercussions of building the freeway extension. One member used the time to express his rage about the plans to transport ancestral remains dug up by ADOT to a museum. This was in response to one committee member’s statement of “odd reassurance” in regards to their process for frequently disrupting the burial grounds of indigenous people in the valley area.
Numerous times, the chairman and others said they understood there were a lot of “emotions” about the proposed freeway. Reducing human rights grievances to mere “emotions” by CTOC was evidence of their cultural, human, and environmental insensitivities and inability to listen to the hard facts that members were bringing up.

We will see if the CTOC is capable of bringing up the Loop 202 on the next agenda. We do not look to the CTOC or MAG for direction or understanding. Our presence at their meetings is to bring their arrogance to public attention. We rally to tear the social fabric holding their corporate networks and security together. Because we know under the outward togetherness of their business attire lays a permeable fragile bundle of nerves held together by the chance they stand unchallenged. Yet we know when we rise to challenge them, they quickly fall to the wayside of our challenge.