Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus: “I think our use of force guidelines are some of the best you will find.”

Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus offered his resignation to Mayor Regina Romero over how TDP officers handled the in-custody death of Carlos Ingram-Lopez last April during today’s press conference regarding the incident.

Before announcing his offer of resignation, Magnus addressed and accepted responsibility for the department’s failure to notify the public of the in-custody death of Ingram-Lopez while he was in their custody. He also took responsibility for TPD executive officers’ failure to review bodycam footage of the incident in a timely manner.

“As chief, I accept responsibility for both these serious misstep, although I believe neither was a result of any sort of malevolence or deliberate attempt to hide anything,” Magnus said. “To demonstrate my willingness to take accountability for these mistakes, I am offering my resignation to the mayor, city council and the city manager, which they can accept or handle as they deem fit.”

Ward 2 Councilmember Paul Cunningham said Magnus still has his full support.

“I’ve already asked the chief not to resign,” Cunningham said. “While the incident in April was tragic and demonstrates the need for police reform, our chief has a track record of being community-oriented and a police reformer. I think it would be a mistake to let Chief Magnus go.”

Ward 6 Councilmember Steve Kozachik also thinks accepting Magnus’ resignation would be a mistake.

“He was let down by people who work for him and he has been an excellent chief,” Kozachik said. “I don’t think there is any rational reason for (Magnus) to resign and I’ve already told (City Manager) Mike Ortega if he is polling people, my vote is to retain him.”

After Kozachik viewed the bodycam footage, he believes the fault lies with the officer’s handling of the situation—not the chief.

“(The officers) did not implement the training that they’ve had. They did not do the de-escalation well. They did not call EMTs soon enough. They did not change his body position soon enough,” Kozachik said. “They should have turned him over gave him some water and tried to come him down. So, yeah…they made multiple mistakes.”

Kozachik takes issue with what he considers misinformation on social media about the details of the case, especially when it’s coming from one of his colleagues—Ward 1 Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz.

“I think that the rhetoric that’s going around that (the TPD officers) murdered the guy, like what’s coming out of Lane Santa Cruz’s office, that there was police violence,” Kozachik said. “If you look at the video you see there was no violence. They made a lot of procedural mistakes. Their resignation was fine by me.”

Councilmember Santa Cruz was unavailable for comment after several attempts, but she did release a statement prior to this afternoon’s press conference.

“I cannot unwatch and unknow that officers used their bodies, denial of water, denial of air, and plastic blankets as a weapon against an unarmed, vulnerable young father in distress,” Santa Cruz said. “Minimizing the unconscionable behavior of the officers involved is infuriating and dangerous. Shootings and chokeholds are not the only forms of violence.”

In the statement, Santa Cruz urges the mayor and council to “ensure that the Tucson Police Department has transparency on any deaths in police custody” while accepting community input. She also would like the council to establish time frames for case review and institute better community oversight policies and community oversight groups.

“We say that it takes a village to raise a child, well it takes a village to fail them too,” Santa Cruz said. “We need answers and justice for the Ingram-Lopez family.”

This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2020.

9 replies on “City Council Members Show Support for Chief Magnus After TPD In-Custody Death”

  1. Santa Cruz needs to go……her exaggerated and incendiary comments only serve to radicalize and inflame this situation. She is infuriating and dangerous. We need common sense and calm to work thru these situations.The lady needs to be recalled or replaced at the next election. Its obvious she does not have the proper temperament for this job of representation!

  2. She completely violated their right to due process and has tainted the entire community as jurors. She must step down or face charges of violation of constitutional rights.

    The Mayor needs to demand her resignation.

  3. Law and order report randy alan jumper pleads guilty to illegal voter fraud in az! An illegal alien voting democrat? No a conservative who voted for dump twice! just like the women who voted illegally for romney twice in 2012!

  4. If the City Clowncil were to accept Magnus’ resignation, then what does that say about them? Then they should all resign as well.
    Regina – you are the Mayor. You have also been on the Clowncil for what, 10, 12 years? We have just ‘discovered’ that TPD might have a problem? Where have you been?

  5. I support Lane Santa Cruz 100 PERCENT. She is doing exactly what people in her Ward elected her to do–stand up for their rights and their safety.

    Ward 1 is one of those places where the cops act like an occupying military force and treat the people who live there (mostly people of color) as universally suspect at best, and enemy combatants at worst. At the very least, they utterly fail to treat them as human beings.

    This is a classic example of police corruption that plays out EVERY SINGLE DAY all over the country: 1) Cops violate procedures, training, and common decency in treating a suffering human being like a rabid animal rather than a suffering human being. 2) The human being dies as a direct result of the cops’ actions. 3) Cops keep it secret while they “investigate” internally. 4) Cops do nothing to hold the offending officers accountable. 5) Medical examiner opens a window of deniability with vague or inconclusive language as to cause of death. 6) Cops cherry pick that language and conveniently leave out the part about “physical restraint” as they continue their coverup to protect their own and manipulate public opinion. 7) Cops make up mealymouthed excuses for their propaganda and coverup even after it becomes public. 8) No one holds the police department itself accountable by implementing true reform or taking away some of their abusive power and privilege.

    All of this is standard operating procedure in police departments all over the country. Why do the cops do it? BECAUSE THEY CAN. Because generally NO ONE holds them accountable.

    Steve Kozachik is dead wrong–I watched every minute of the horrific video, and this IS “police violence”, by any rational definition of that term. The cops pinned him down and suffocated him until he was dead, with little regard for his humanity or well being, even when he was already handcuffed. They threatened to taser him, even while he was handcuffed, which is essentially torture. And the whole time they treated his nana with the same callous disregard each time she intervened to try to save him. It was brutal and violent, and this man would almost certainly be alive today were it not for his interaction with the police.

    Even if you are having a psychotic episode while dosing hard on cocaine, it does not mean you deserve to be killed by the police. On the contrary, compressing a man’s heart while he’s tripping on cocaine is a good way to kill him instantly. Officers have a responsibility to be aware of things like that, rather than acting as executioners on the street. It’s absolutely ridiculous to talk about “due process” for the officers while ignoring the rights of the victim here.

    It’s absolutely incumbent on police in this historical moment to start proving that they are NOT the enemy of the people. Instead, they’re proving just the opposite.

    Three cheers to Lane Santa Cruz for demanding some basic accountability!

  6. Once again armchair quarterbacks jump to pre conceived conclusions based on their history. Why is it ok for you to do that but it’s not ok for the police? That video was too dark to see positions or pressure. They attempted to get him to calm down and comply. The original autopsy info said he suffered from dangerous levels of cocaine and an enlarged heart. Has that been changed?

  7. Has Mayor or any Council member been honest with us about why it took two months to find out this happened? Why didn’t the family contact Chief or Mayor to pay for funeral? Something doesn’t pass the smell test like resignation offer by Chief after withholding the info. Didn’t they talk about this back in May?

  8. For us to look the other way when a man lies dead after being restrained by THREE police officers is a disaster. I urged the City Council, Mayor, and Ortega to accept this resignation. I support Santa Cruz’s outrage in this case, and think that many in her ward and out of it will support it as well. Why did the grandmother not have an easy to remember phone number to call that would actually get someone who knew how to handle the situation, instead of three policemen? I am outraged by those who say “well, he was full of cocaine” as if there is a death sentence for doing cocaine in this country. This type of abuse, and worse, has GOT to stop. Clearly the lauded “8 steps” for being a progressive police force did not work in this case, and more of that is not going to work either. The police need to be seriously shrunken to ONLY the part that deals with criminal activity (which running around naked in your house and screaming is NOT) while others, who do not have guns or paramilitary training, handle other types of cases. Remember social workers? Remember counselors? Remember mental health specialists?

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