The Phoenix Police Airplane Flew in a Data Gathering Pattern Near the Coliseum Where the Audit Is Being Held

 

What is going on with the surveillance near the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum by the Phoenix Police?  Whose phone data are they after?

We first reported on the police airplane trolling the skies over and near where the Maricopa County Audit on Monday.  

Then on Tuesday, we provided information on the use of stingrays in smaller planes like the one being run by the Phoenix police.  These devices are used “to locate and track suspects by their cellular connections.”

But we also pointed out that the Phoenix Police Department is in an agreement with the FBI from 2013 where they agreed to:

only use this technology in support of public safety operations or criminal investigations”.

However, the Police reported to us, in part, that:

While the maps do accurately represent our flights, both times were the aircraft was on police calls that had nothing to do with the events at the Veteran Memorial Coliseum.”

 So we went back and reviewed a trip we identified of the Police airplane PC12 on Friday, April 30th.  Note that the maps are in UTC time which is 7 hours ahead of Phoenix time.

We also listened to the first few hours of Phoenix Police audio archives for the same time period.  We listened in on the police calls and found no calls related to official police business at this time.

We also looked at reported crimes on the 30th and there was only one shooting:

It really appears unreasonable for a police plane to make so many circles at that time in that area on April 30th, between cell phone towers near the Coliseum.  There must have been a purpose.

We did uncover that the same plane (PC12) was circling above the George Floyd protests in Arizona on June 2nd and 3rd per a request for information at that time.

The question still remains, whose caller information was the Phoenix PD attempting to obtain over the past few days?  Was there a reason it was so close to the Veterans Coliseum and near the cell towers near there?

We’ll contact the Phoenix Police and see if we can find out more about this strange activity and let you know what we find.