In the sweltering summer of 2022, the Phoenix Police Department was almost a year into a Department of Justice civil rights investigation when it found itself facing a different kind of crisis: staffing. About 20 officers were leaving the department every month, said senior police officials, and recruitment was lagging woefully. The Phoenix City Council swiftly passed an ordinance that boosted new recruits’ pay by $20,000 a year, making Phoenix police officers the highest-paid cops in Arizona.
Soon, Scotty Bach joined Phoenix police as a civilian investigator. Within five months, he became a Phoenix police officer. His swift rise owed in part to deep experience. Roughly nine out of 10 cops the department hired in 2023 had been new recruits, but Bach came to Phoenix with more than 20 years of policing experience in Seattle. That seemingly made him eligible for a hiring bonus of $7,500, since he wasn’t a fresh recruit the department had to spend money to train. (Because his hire as an officer came after his initial civilian hire, Phoenix police officials later determined he was not eligible for the hiring bonus, the city said in a statement.)
Yet, like many veteran officers hired into short-staffed police departments, he also brought an unsavory past. Bach is also one of six Seattle police officers whom the Seattle Police Department investigated for their presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021…