What's It Like Being the Police Chief in the Hottest City in the Country?

In this episode of PERFcast, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler talks with Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan about the challenges his department faces during the city's historic heatwave.

Thanks for listening to PERFcast, the official podcast of the Police Executive Research Forum. For more information on PERF, visit www.policeforum.org.

Transcript

Dustin Waters: 0:03

Welcome to PERFcast, the official podcast of the Police Executive Research Forum.

News Anchor: 0:09

It has been a brutal summer in Phoenix with the unprecedented heatwave smashing records.

News Anchor 2: 0:15

Temperatures are setting records across this country and around the world. Tens of millions of Americans from California to Florida are struggling right now to endure these dangerous and sometimes deadly conditions.

News Anchor 3: 0:27

In Phoenix, the average temperature so far this month has been nearly 103 degrees, seven degrees higher than normal, forecasters say, and expected to break the previous all-time monthly record of roughly 99 degrees set in August 2020.

Dustin Waters: 0:44

In this episode of PERFcast, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler talks with Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan about the challenges his department faces during the city's historic heatwave.

Chuck Wexler: 0:56

It looks like you had 31 days of 110 degrees every day. So what's it like being police chief at the hottest city in the country?

Michael Sullivan: 1:10

You know, it's something that we have to think about every day, and just about everything you do, from training at the academy to scenes on the street. You know, I think we get really, really good at trading out special assignment units or SWAT unit team members. But those folks on the perimeter, if they're out of their car for you know, any amount of time you get, you have to have a relief plan to make sure that that's happening on a regular basis. Otherwise, you put yourself in a real bad position.

Chuck Wexler: 1:39

I mean, you're not from Phoenix. You're from Louisville. I mean, what's it like for you? Is that I mean, have you ever experienced anything like this in your life?

Michael Sullivan: 1:48

The unrelenting piece of it is what's incredible. You know, we're talking over 110 for 31 days, but then there's there's nights that have barely dipped below 100. While we broke that streak, we're getting ready to go back into it for at least another 10 days, it looks like starting tomorrow, 115-plus later this week.

Chuck Wexler: 2:08

You've got a sizable number of people in Phoenix that are without homes. Cost of housing is high. A lot of homeless people. How are the homeless and other people affected by this? And how do you work with other city agencies to deal with say, let's start with the homeless?

Michael Sullivan: 2:30

That's one of the most challenging populations that you have out there to begin with, before you add the heat in. You know, what we see is a lot of the homeless population also deals with mental health and addiction problems. So that complicates matters even even more. You know, what we see, we have an area where we have a large homeless population, and they have tents set up. And what we found is they don't want to leave. We're finding people dead in their tents because they don't want to leave their belongings. You know, so we started pulling buses onto those streets in those areas as cooling centers. And we're seeing them being used because they can get on the bus. It's close to their stuff. They don't feel like they're going to lose their stuff. It's saving lives with that effort being able to do that. And we're also finding folks that are unhoused that are addicted to different types of substances, find themselves passed out, and end up with third-degree burns. Our burn units are full down here from people, you know, being down on the pavement before we get to them or our fire rescue gets to them and get them to the hospital. And it's filling up our burn units here in Phoenix.

Chuck Wexler: 3:40

You told me that just falling down and lying on the pavement you could get burned. Talk about that for a minute.

Michael Sullivan: 3:47

Oh, yeah. You can fry an egg when it's 115 degrees outside, you know, on the regular. So yeah, we're filling up burn rooms with folks that that go down and are on the pavement for a period of time before we get there. And you know, the burns are are just from the radiant heat from the pavement.

Chuck Wexler: 4:08

And then you know, your officers, you know, they're used, they're somewhat used to this, but they're wearing vests and so forth. How do they manage? Did they adapt in any special way to this?

Michael Sullivan: 4:22

I talked to a number officers about how you deal with this. And I was told "hydrate" and "Gold Bond." Otherwise the rashes that you get under your vest are pretty significant. Exterior vests are something that we see a lot offers officers take advantage of, and then officers at the range and some of our crime scene techs actually have vests that they pack with ice packs when they go out there to do the work.

Chuck Wexler: 4:51

You come from Louisville, which I know Louisville had a big issue with fentanyl. How is fentanyl affecting Phoenix, and does the heat at all impact the whole drug population?

Michael Sullivan: 5:03

It greatly affects the drug population. And we're the front door to the fentanyl epidemic. It's coming up from Mexico. And we're kind of the first stop on that distribution network, which makes it very, very inexpensive. M30 fentanyl pills, folks can get on the street here for $2. I mean, it's, it's incredible. Some of those same pills go up exponentially as they spread out around the country. It makes it very, very easy for people to to acquire those and then all the problems that come with with the addicted population. And then what we still are seeing a big problem is meth here locally, as well. So those are, are the two big issues with with drugs that we're seeing here in Phoenix right now.

Chuck Wexler: 5:49

How about crime? How are, you know, how are people's nerves when you're at 110 degrees for 30 days? Do you see any increase in assaults, domestic violence, homicides, shootings. Does the temperature affect how people relate to each other?

Michael Sullivan: 6:07

You know, thankfully, we're not seeing an increase in crime this year. But what we do see is when we do see events happen, we see people having very short fuses, whether it's road rage incidents, or just disputes that spiral fairly quickly, because people just don't have the patience dealing with the heat and what they have to deal with in this extreme environment.

Chuck Wexler: 6:28

Is there an agency that monitors the elderly? And do you work with that? Do police have some responsibility with other agencies?

Michael Sullivan: 6:36

Yeah, we have strategic plans and heat mitigation plans across the city, Human Services, you know, our, we have a PPD Safety Unit that, that we work with. We have our Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management that is a strong partner. And then obviously, public transit, and, you know, private partners, like the Heat Relief Network, who are all partners that we partner with to be able to manage through this heat.

Chuck Wexler: 7:05

Your officers, when they go out every day, are they, how have they learned to adjust to it? Do they carry water with them? Do you monitor them at all? And you were telling me about someone in the academy that you had to watch? Can you talk about, you know, officer health and well being?

Michael Sullivan: Yeah, that's one of the things that we really push to supervisors, obviously. It's education. We push things out to the officers directly, but we expect supervisors to pay attention. Everybody carries a water bottle here, and not a plastic water bottle, but a thermos with, you know, 32 to 40 ounces of water, to keep yourself hydrated. You have to drink all the time, all day and then all night, when you get home to rehydrate to get ready for the next day. We had a recruit who dropped out last week during some physical activity. We started physical activity and started the academy at 5: 7:25

30 in the morning, to try to avoid extreme heat. We had him go down with heat injury. And since then we ceased academy operations. We were working within the parameters that we had, but we want to keep people safe, and make sure we're doing that. At the range, we have cooling tents set up. And we can only use the range in the mornings. And in between the lines at the range, we'll bring people into the cooling tents to be able to do that. So it affects those operations as well.

Chuck Wexler: 8:26

Any other comments you would like to make, any other unexpected challenges? Or is this just part of being you know, the police chief of Phoenix? It just comes with the job description? This is, I mean, even by Phoenix standards, you've broken records, right?

Michael Sullivan: 8:43

This is my first summer down here. And they're doing it right for me. They've turned up the heat. I guess if you can survive this, you can survive any summer in Phoenix. One of the things that I saw when I first got here, and this was in the winter, people had carpet tiles in the back of the Tahoes that we have for patrol cars. And I was asking what they have them there for. If they have to get out and direct traffic at an accident scene, they throw them down so the soles of their shoes don't melt to the pavement. Those are the types of things that officers come up with, creative ways to deal with problems that you don't think that you're ever going to have to encounter.

Chuck Wexler: 9:20

Well, Mike, listen, I know you're busy guy. I think, I just think chiefs would would appreciate this. You're in the middle of the hottest part of the country, and sounds like you're persevering and doing well. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Mike. Appreciate you as always.

Michael Sullivan: 9:37

No, absolutely. Seven months of absolute perfect weather for a couple months of really, really buckling down. Phoenix is a good place.

Dustin Waters: 9:48

Thanks for listening to this episode of PERFcast, the official podcast of the Police Executive Research Forum. Please be sure to subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and stay tuned for upcoming episodes. For more information on PERF, visit www.policeforum.org or follow us on Twitter @policeforum. Thanks again for listening.