Tempe ‘goon squad’ cops arrest homeless advocate in escalating clash

The city of Tempe has raised the stakes in its ongoing battle of wills with Austin Davis, the man whose efforts to feed and help the unhoused have drawn the ire of city officials.

On Friday, Tempe police arrested Davis over two alleged trespassing violations, which police said happened July 23 and 24 at Mouer Park. Davis spent the night in jail before being released Saturday morning.

Davis has now been cited five times for trespassing in Tempe, all of them in July. He was first cited on July 1 for being in a Tempe park past its closing time; Davis said he was there to clean up trash. He was then banned from certain Tempe parks for a month, and Davis’ subsequent four trespassing citations — including two new alleged violations that led to his arrest — have stemmed from that ban.

Davis has denied he was in the parks illegally on the days in question. None of the last four citations were issued at the time of his supposed violation but instead were served to him days later.

On Friday, Davis said undercover cops waited outside his Scottsdale apartment and followed him for a mile before pulling him over and arresting him. He was held overnight and released after prosecutors unsuccessfully tried to convince a judge to put Davis back in jail on a $1,000 bond.

“The city’s actions should worry anyone with a conscience,” Davis said in a written statement. “The City is using its police powers like a mafia goon squad to terrorize anyone who defies their political goals.”

Tempe spokesperson Kris Baxter-Ging would not tell Phoenix New Times what evidence the city has regarding Davis’ alleged crimes on July 23 and 24.

In a press release, the city said it provided Davis with a map showing where he could not go. New Times obtained that map, which has crudely drawn boundaries and does not clearly outline specific areas that are off limits. Davis said he “never went in the park” on the days in question and was only “dropping off supplies at the gate of the parking lot.”

Even a Tempe park ranger expressed doubt that Davis had been properly informed of where he could and couldn’t go, according to an incident report written by Tempe officer Katherine Click in mid-July. In it, Click wrote that a ranger wondered if Davis had been told that Lakeview Drive, the road on which the park gate sits, also was off limits.

“Ranger Marko explained to me that (the forbidden area) did encompass Lakeview Drive and the area he originally saw Davis standing with the camera crew,” Click wrote, “but he was not sure if that was explained to Davis.”

Boy, that escalated quickly

Tempe’s relationship with Davis has soured over the years but only recently became a head-on clash.

Initially, the “Sunday Picnics” hosted by Davis and his nonprofit AZ Hugs were met with acclaim. Held in Tempe parks, the weekly events to distribute food to the unhoused and connect them with vital resources won the city’s “Neighborhood Event of the Year” in 2022.

But since June 2023 — when Rosa Inchausti became Tempe city manager — the city has targeted Davis’ efforts. First, Tempe demanded AZ Hugs obtain a special events permit. When the organization applied, the city denied the permit on the basis that Davis had continued to host the feedings in the interim.

The same day the city denied the permit, Tempe prosecutors charged Davis with six violations of the city’s special permit ordinance — each punishable by a maximum fine of $2,500, up to six months in jail or both. This May, Tempe dropped all but one charge, hauling Davis into court for the remaining alleged violation. Since his last court date, however, the city leveled eight more charges, bringing Davis’ total to nine.

Davis has continued to host the feedings while the court case is ongoing. And Tempe has continued to make that difficult for him.

On July 1, a park ranger cited Davis for trespassing at Moeur Park, minutes after the park had closed. Davis said he was there to help clean up trash at the request of a group of unhoused people whom rangers were kicking out of the park. As a result, Davis was banned from all Tempe parks in the Papago Park Preserve through Aug. 2.

On July 10, Davis was cited twice more for trespassing in the park on July 6 and 7. The citations earned Davis a year-long ban from the parks, according to a police report. The report referenced a video taken by park rangers that allegedly shows Davis under a park ramada on July 7.

However, Davis doubts park rangers had evidence that he was in the park on those days and contends that he remained off park grass and on the sidewalk, technically outside the park’s boundaries. Since his ban, he and volunteers have set up a table at the edge of the park so he could sit down on the sidewalk without touching park grass during his events.

Then came his arrest.

‘A terrible place’

Davis described his night in jail to New Times in a written message, which shed more light on the city’s homelessness issues.

“The Tempe jail is a terrible place,” Davis wrote. “It’s underground. Cold. My cell had a steel toilet attached to a sink that I was supposed to drink from if I needed water.”

After being fingerprinted and patted down, Davis said he was put in a holding cell, where he sat for about an hour. Eventually, two unhoused people joined him. It took what he called 12 “agonizing” hours — constant noise, bright fluorescent lights — to see a judge.

“There was someone with very obvious and severe mental illnesses who was put in a cell by himself during a schizophrenic episode,” Davis wrote. “The whole night he was crying and banging on the walls, screaming ‘help me please’ and ‘they’re going to kill me.’ It was awful to have to listen to that for 12 hours as the cops did nothing. He just needed to go to a psych hospital.”

In the morning, Davis said he and others were chained together — cuffed at the ankles and around the waist, with each wrist fixed to a belt. At his arraignment, a Tempe Municipal Court judge banned him from every Tempe park.

“He said if I’m arrested and brought in front of him again, I’ll ‘have a much different outcome,’” Davis wrote.

Davis’ arrest and release mimics many cities’ approach to homelessness. The unhoused population in the Valley remains steady at nearly 10,000, and many municipalities have attempted to fix the problem by criminalizing it.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently reported that Phoenix police violated the civil rights of unhoused people, disproportionately arresting them for misdemeanors — 37% of arrests, despite the unhoused representing just 1% of the population — over a six-year period examined by the department. Weeks after the DOJ’s report, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson gave cities the green light to ban sleeping outside even when no shelter beds are available.

The estimated number of unsheltered people in Tempe actually decreased in 2024, according to the Maricopa Association of Governments’ annual January count. But that may have been because a large number of people have been pushed into Phoenix – in January, hundreds were living under the Hohokam Expressway directly west of Tempe. In March, the Union Pacific Railroad sent its police force to clear the area, which they claimed was railroad property.

Tempe’s website includes vague language about its efforts to fight homelessness. It states, “The city has invested heavily to serve those in need and is committed to making homelessness a rare, brief and one-time experience in our community.” In a phone conversation, New Times asked Baxter-Ging to describe the city’s plan to address the homeless crisis. She said she would send information via email and then hung up.

A day later, she sent a short statement. "Last year the City spent $72 million serving the homeless and expanding affordable housing," it said before linking to the city's homeless outreach website.

Not over yet

Davis now has two court cases on the Tempe Municipal Court docket. He’s due in court on Aug. 14 in relation to the permit violation, and he’ll have a pretrial conference on Aug. 30 about his trespassing citations.

His efforts to feed the homeless haven’t slowed, however. If anything, they’ve grown. In recent weeks, Davis said, the number of people reaching out to volunteer with AZ Hugs or donate resources has surged. That’s allowed Davis to lay low while others in the community members feed and help the homeless.

But Tempe has not eased off the gas, either. When Davis was released from jail Saturday, he met his aunt at a Cracker Barrel for a meal. After they parted, Davis said, a cop car followed his aunt to a gas station.

The cop then blocked her car with his vehicle at the gas station for five minutes while the officer approached a group of unhoused people nearby and then entered the gas station shop.

Davis’ aunt, who spoke with New Times but asked not to be named, said she was “freaked out” because she couldn’t leave the parking lot. The entire time, she added, the officer did not say a word to her.

Coincidence or not, the strange episode makes one thing clear: The battle between Davis and Tempe is as tense as it’s ever been.