Large police sweep in The Zone takes homeless, activists by surprise 21%
By Clarissa Sosin19%
7/29/2026, 5:00:00 PM
Keywords: Crime, Homelessness
BS Summary: This article contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Authority, and Self-Serving Bias, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 13.3% saturation with 111 hits. Analysis detected 512 faulty-reasoning hits from 832 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 29.7% and a BS Rank of 21% (20,946 of 26,304 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.60% of the article peer group.
It was just after 7 a.m. on Thursday morning when the Phoenix police officers rolled up to a curved stretch of road at the intersection of S. 11th Avenue and W.
Jackson Street.
Quickly the quiet stretch of street outside came to life.
A man wearing green pants and no shirt who’d tucked himself in right up next to the wall of the Andre House of Hospitality, one of the homeless services providers, sleepily lifted his head to see what the commotion was.
Immediately he stood and began to gather his stuff.
The officers were conducting a sweep of “The Zone,” the notorious homeless encampment near downtown Phoenix.
While it was disbanded in 2023, The Zone still exists in a smaller form, with fewer people and fewer tents.
Its boundaries are S. 9th Avenue to S. 15th Avenue between W.
Jefferson and W.
Jackson Streets.
Ask some, however, and it extends all the way from W.
Washington Street to W.
Grant.
Sweeps happen regularly after a court ordered the area cleared in 2023.
But the one on the morning of July 30 came without the usual warnings and with a far stronger police presence, two witnesses who filmed the sweep told Phoenix New Times.
“When I looked to my right, I saw like a butt-ton of cop cars just ripping around the corner from where I was parked,” Jessica Spencer, one of the witnesses, said.
“It looks like they started arresting people, so I got out and I started recording.”
Spencer and her partner, Sophia Elicia, are activists who provide aid to people sleeping on Phoenix’s streets.
Elicia, who runs the Instagram account @unshelteredphx, regularly films interactions between homeless people and police, including officers’ use of a “honeypot” to trap and trespass people in a city park.
She asked to be identified by her first and middle names out of fear of retaliation.
The two were out there that morning because Elicia had checked in on a friend the night before and heard through word of mouth that the police might be coming the next day.
Phoenix heavily restricted camping in public places such as city sidewalks, alleyways and roads, and areas within 500 feet of shelters, schools, parks, and childcare centers.
Elicia said that typically when sweeps happen, officers warn everyone and give them a chance to move their stuff to a temporary location.
But this time they “swarmed in,” and with a lot of patrol cars at that.
“They were clearly, you know, planning to to come through with a hammer,” she said.
Spokesperson for Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions Kristin Couturier, who responded on behalf of the police department as well, confirmed the operation in an emailed statement and said the city is under a permanent court injunction to keep the 15-block area around the Key Campus, the hub for homeless services in near downtown Phoenix, free of “tents, makeshift structures, and biohazards,” she wrote.
“Closing this block was an extra safety precaution that allowed staff to address the trash and debris in the area, work to engage with each person in the area and offer them services, and allow police to address warrants, camping violations or other criminal activity,” she wrote.
“Everyone on the block had the opportunity to take their belongings with them or store their property with the City.”
Couturier said that seven people were arrested for felonies.
Eighteen people were “contacted” for camping and trespassing.
If they did not have outstanding warrants, they were “issued citations in lieu of detention,” she wrote.
“The City of Phoenix is obligated to maintain safe, clean, public spaces that are usable for everyone, and we will continue to maintain this area in accordance with the court order,” Couturier wrote.
Footage shows the officers arriving and the people who were sleeping or sitting on the sidewalk trying to leave.
Officers detain and question them.
At least three people were filmed being taken away in handcuffs.
At least two officers on the scene were not Phoenix police.
One wore a vest that said “Probation” and the other wore one that said “U.S.
Marshalls.”
Elicia and Spencer said that people who could clear out did so.
Those who got stuck were checked by the officers for warrants and if they weren’t arrested, they were issued a citation.
Once that process was complete, homeless service providers were available to connect people to services.
But even the offer of services felt disingenuous, Elicia said.
Some people don’t want to work with them because its not right for them yet, they’ve had a bad experience, or don’t trust the providers.
And even if they might want to accept services, that can be difficult to do for many with police hovering nearby.
Elicia said she doesn’t see the point of the sweeps when all they do is disperse people into the neighborhoods for a few hours.
“People just don’t have anywhere to go,” she said.
Speakers
3speakers56%attributed speech368writer words
Selected voice
83%flagged-word coverageElicia
221 attributed words48% of attributed speech3.0% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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