The command staff of the Flagstaff Police Department spoke to city council on Tuesday, June 10, laying out their plan for crime reduction in 2025.
Crime rates in Flagstaff remain low overall, Police Chief Sean Connolly emphasized.
“This is still an incredibly safe community,� he told the council.
Still, the department aims to bring numbers down further this year, and it laid out strategies for doing so in a shared with the council.
The department has not yet released its for 2024 -- a document that typically provides details on reported crimes as well as on the department’s staffing and operations. A limited dataset included in the presentation, however, shows an overall increase in reported Part I Violent Crimes (a nationally standardized classification) from 2023 to 2024.
There were relatively minor increases in the absolute numbers of homicides, sexual assaults and robberies year-over-year, but the biggest change was a spike in the number of reported aggravated assaults: 217 in 2024, up from 131 the year prior. Department officials did not offer an explanation for the surge.
(Though the rise was abrupt, the total is not exceptional in Flagstaff's recent history. Prior annual reports show that approximately 200 aggravated assaults were reported each year from 2016 through 2019.)
Most types of Part I Property Crimes, including residential, commercial and vehicle burglaries, declined from 2023. Motor vehicle thefts and petty theft, however, both rose.
The crime reduction plan lays out five major goals: reduce violent crimes and property crimes by 8% and 3%, respectively; increase the number of cases sent to prosecutors for the sale or distribution of illegal drugs by 3%; increase the use of technology; modernize the new officer training process; and make roadways safer.
And it also states five “guiding principles� for the department’s efforts: a victim-centered approach; community engagement; continued professional development of staff; officer wellness and safety; and data-driven policing.
Connolly stated that to achieve its crime reduction goals, the Flagstaff Police Department plans to focus on “people, places and behavior�: repeat offenders, areas with high concentrations of criminal activity and “upstream� drivers of criminal offenses like intoxication, addiction and mental health.
“If you were to pull a patrol officer aside, or a detective, you would see a conversation about the same names,� the police chief said. “It’s the same small group of individuals perpetuating the majority of crime.�
As evidence for that assertion, Connolly cited the recent arrest of a cluster of 20 individuals on drug trafficking charges. Those 20 suspects, he claimed, were responsible for 283 criminal offenses in total.
(A preliminary review of Arizona court records at the time the arrests were announced did confirm that nearly all the suspects had extensive records of involvement with the criminal justice system, though their prior offenses varied widely from minor traffic offenses to felonies. The Arizona Daily Sun has not independently confirmed the total figure.)
The department’s written plan states, “The early identification, investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of these individuals� -- repeat offenders, particularly those with a history of violent acts -- “provides the highest probability of preventing more crime.�
Connolly and Deputy Chief Collin Seay, who oversees patrol operations, also stated that crime is disproportionately concentrated in specific areas. In his remarks, Connolly alluded to Flagstaff Shelter Services� congregate shelter on Huntington Drive: “We continue to get a lot of calls, and there’s a lot of officer conflict,� he noted. He also mentioned bus stops as locations generating “disproportionate amounts of calls for service.�
Seay fielded questions from City Manager Greg Clifton and Vice Mayor Miranda Sweet about Flagstaff’s historic downtown. Referencing “hot spot� mapping included in the document, Clifton said, “As I look at it, high-level, and specific to violent crimes, we see a lot of activity in the downtown area.� He asked if the implementation of a “walking beat� or foot patrol downtown had made any appreciable impact yet.
“I think it is a little early to see what the data’s going to do,� Seay said.
There are currently six officers and a sergeant assigned to the downtown area, working a “swing shift� from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m., Wednesday through Saturday each week. That schedule, he explained, was chosen to correspond with the times when the department has observed the highest rates of crime and the most frequent calls.
Sweet echoed Clifton’s concerns, stating that downtown business owners are “nervous.� �
Every year, right around this time, we start having a huge uptick� in crime downtown, Sweet said. She suggested the department should take a more proactive approach to planning for the “early summer months."
One of the factors Seay identified as contributing to the relatively high rate of offenses downtown was intoxication. That was one of the “upstream� factors Connolly mentioned earlier in the presentation as a driver of criminality, along with addiction, homelessness and mental or behavioral health.
The written plan states that the department will “extend alternatives to incarceration where possible,� and “rely on community members, prosecuting partners, other law enforcement agencies and social service providers for assistance to find the best solutions for the causation of crime in our community.�
Staying proactive in the community
Looking forward, Connolly noted that the department will be implementing a new records management system -- though the transition will likely take over a year. He spoke of changing the department’s postacademy training process to emphasize keeping people onboard rather than “weeding out� recruits. And he talked about creating “advisory boards� to facilitate greater engagement with specific community groups, such as Flagstaff’s Indigenous residents.
Connolly also reminded the council that the Flagstaff Police Department will be rejoining the state’s multi-agency gang task force, Gang & Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission (GIITEM).
One department officer will be assigned to the task force beginning this summer, with a second to follow. According to the crime reduction plan, the task force will focus on identification of violent offenders with gang ties and community education “to deter juvenile entry into street gangs.�
Deputy Chief Charles Hernandez, who oversees the investigations division, mentioned that undercover sting operations -- like the one that led to the arrest of prominent Flagstaff radio host Dave Zorn in late March -- will continue and stay under the joint supervision of the North Star Task Force
“We’ve held four proactive operations in the community with this task force, aimed at human trafficking and child-luring crimes,� Hernandez said. “These operations have led to 47 arrests.�
In addition to continuing operations, he said the department would be "wrapping services around potential victims of these crimes as well."
Council had few questions following the presentation. Multiple members of city council thanked the chief and deputy chiefs for the document -- Anthony Garcia, for instance, called it “the most vulnerable, the most genuine, the most forthcoming that I’ve seen from the police department since I’ve been sitting in this room � for close to 18 years now.�
Councilman Austin Aslan encouraged Connolly to “remember to prioritize transparency and public access to information.� And he asked if a model like Boston’s  -- a strategy to deter gun violence by “calling in� gang members, community leaders and law enforcement for conversations about potential prosecution and alternatives -- could be applied in Flagstaff.
Connolly replied that he is a “firm believer� in the violence-interruption model, and added, “Ceasefire’s a solid program. I think it needs to be tweaked to the Flagstaff way.�
At the end of the discussion, Connolly said, “We have a mindset that there’s no finish line in this business.�
“This conversation about our role in our community,� he continued, “I think there’s gonna be great days and there’s gonna be tough days.�
Arguably, June 10 was one of those “tough days�, as multiple news outlets reported the death of Derek Blakely, 22, who was involved in a collision with a department patrol vehicle a week prior and subsequently died from injuries incurred in the crash. The chief briefly alluded to the incident at one point in his remarks, but neither he nor the council specifically discussed it. The department has stated that an investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing.
The full replay of the presentation is available on the City of Flagstaff’s YouTube channel, . (The presentation begins 1 hour and 44 minutes into the June 10 meeting.)