Attendance drops after claim of police abuse near Phoenix church
by Michael Ferraresi - Jul. 13, 2010 08:58 AM
The Arizona Republic
Some parishioners saw the men being handcuffed by police. They wondered why one man was face-down on the street outside their church, blood dripping from his face.
The incident outside St. Paul the Apostle Sudanese Episcopal Church, in which Phoenix police officers were accused of falsely arresting and abusing two Sudanese refugees, led to a recent $150,000 settlement to avoid a lawsuit.
Attendance at prayer services at the church near Seventh Avenue and Buckeye Road averaged more than 130 people prior to the incident, though word of the altercation "put fear into the community" of refugees, many of whom are now avoiding the neighborhood out of fear of racial profiling and police brutality, the church pastor said.
"The news of that incident, it caused the numbers to go down," the Rev. Anderia Arok said.
Services now average 60 to 70 people, Arok said.
The two Sudanese men who received the settlement were planning on attending a prayer service inside the church that day in July 2009, joining other refugees to discuss an international court's ruling on a regional dispute in their war-torn homeland.
St. Paul the Apostle, which is part of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, caters to Sudanese refugees.
An internal police investigation cleared Officers Jason Hammernick and Corey Shibata of any wrongdoing. City officials said similar settlements are approved to avoid the added expense of defending officers in court.
Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/07/13/20100713phoenix-sudanese-episcopal-church-fear.html
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