Episode 7: What's Eating Gilbert?

In Episode 7, we take a step back from Rachel’s case to examine two serious allegations involving the Gilbert Police Department and the town council. 

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/gilbert/2026/04/07/arizona-court-records-claim-to-show-motive-nick-cordova-killing-gilbert-air/89309832007/

https://www.gilbertaz.gov/Home/Components/News/News/5781/1379

https://kcby.com/news/local/oregon-town-defunded-police-force-40-years-ago-manages-with-other-enforcement

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1dhgs_sfiU/?igsh=NnJubXFzM2Fiajlp

https://www.facebook.com/12news/posts/a-witness-tells-12news-the-teens-hopped-fences-saturday-night-to-get-inside-the-/1346941457467241/

https://nij.ojp.gov/speech/directors-message-proactive-policing-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont-know-yet

https://www.facebook.com/12news/posts/a-witness-tells-12news-the-teens-hopped-fences-saturday-night-to-get-inside-the-/1346941457467241/

https://www.tiktok.com/@12newsaz/video/7626499134895262989?q=Gilbert%20goons&t=1775848387886

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

We are thrilled to announce that this episode is brought to you by Lagoon Pillow. As women in our 40s who are trying to take care of our health and wellness, we know that good mornings start with optimal sleep, and Lagoon Pillows are made just for that. They're customizable, supportive, and will have you waking up feeling your best. I personally am an otter. Head to lagoon sleep.com, take the sleep quiz, and use code BOOKCLUB for 15% off your next order. Hi, I'm Emily.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I'm Ashley. This is Reconsidered Unsolved, where we focus on unsolved cases in the pursuit of justice. You are listening to season one, Rachel Hansen. Welcome back to our series about Rachel Hansen. This is episode seven. Last week we told you about the Preston Lorde murder and the case of the Gilbert Goons. Today we are going to continue to talk about the pressing issue to the Gilbert community of unsolved cases, including that of Rachel's. We will tell you about one other case that has garnered local and some national attention, and we'll share with you some of the complaints of the community and our assessment of what we think is happening in Gilbert. First, let us tell you about the unsolved case of Nick Cordova. This has captured the community's attention and national attention, and it continues to frustrate people as they want justice. Last episode, we told you to go learn about Nick's case, as we won't cover it extensively here. We will give you a good rundown of the case here, but our focus will be on the aftermath of Nick's case and other cases, so our coverage will be minimal on this. It will be sufficient for you to understand the nature of this case. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

In 2020, Nick Cordova co-owned a business called Gilbert Air, a heating and HVAC company in Gilbert, Arizona. He was married to a woman named Alicia and was a devoted husband and father to two children. On the evening of May 27, 2020, Nick was at his office FaceTiming with his kids when chaos ensued. The children heard a scuffle and, frightened, called for their mom Alicia. Alicia called 911 while trying to get Nick to respond through FaceTime, screaming for him to come back to the phone. As documented by the 911 call, Nick's business partner Dave Sweetman got on the phone to Alicia and said that he didn't know what happened. He had been knocked out and was just coming to. Officers responded to the scene and found Nick Cordova deceased of a gunshot wound to the head. Alicia rushed to the scene to try to find out what was going on. We spoke with Alicia last week and she told us that almost immediately her gut told her that Nick's business partner Dave had something to do with it. Dave was on the scene when Gilbert police arrived and they detained and questioned him but later released him. Dave told investigators the murder was a robbery, but no money was taken, and in fact, a large sum of cash was actually found in Dave's pocket. The killers seemed to have simply rushed into the business, executed Nick, and left. The investigation began quickly, and Alicia stated her first interactions with Gilbert PD felt optimistic and helpful. And based on statements by the detectives on the case, Alicia had the impression they were making significant traction on the case. For one, police had a strong lead on the suspects very quickly. Two men in a truck were caught on camera entering and exiting the parking lot of Gilbert Air. In the course of the investigation, officers identified the same truck on camera at a local convenience store immediately after the murder. One of the men exited the truck and entered the store, where he was caught on camera, and the images are crystal clear. On June 12th, two weeks after Nick's murder, Gilbert Police released the images of the man asking for the public's help identifying him. Alicia became more and more suspicious around Dave's involvement in the crime. And soon after Nick's death, Alicia discovered Nick had switched beneficiaries on a life insurance policy from his wife Alicia and his children to Gilbert Air. The $5 million policy was digitally signed by Nick, but Alicia is certain Nick would never have agreed to the policy and filed a lawsuit alleging the signatures were forged. Alicia and Dave later settled the lawsuit, but the questions remain unanswered around Dave's potential involvement in Nick's murder and why the men who killed him have not been arrested. There are so many more interesting details to this case.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Let's get to it. Why are we talking about Nick Cordova when this podcast is about Rachel Hansen? Because Rachel and Nick's names are often uttered in the same breath. Throughout our investigation of Rachel's case, we were continually directed to also take a look at Nick's case. And as we noted in the previous episode, the faith in the Gilbert Police Department appears to be shaken by these two significant homicides, along with the Preston Lord murder we talked about last episode. We're going to get into some other specific concerns noted by the community about the Gilbert PD, and we're going to provide some of our own questions and analysis.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

In speaking with both Nick Cordova's wife Alicia and with Rachel's mom, Kim Hansen, both women have the same impression of the Gilbert police communication, and that's that it is minimal. They both report receiving very vague statements about how they are still working and cannot share more information without compromising their cases.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Which may be true, right? We have to understand that police may give a family member information they don't want out publicly, and if they see that information slip out, then they tighten up on their willingness to share. To balance this, it does seem like the Gilbert PD wants really nothing out there about these cases. I know in all cases there's information held back, but they seem to want to hold all information back with very little being offered to the public about the crimes. Why does that matter? Because in reality, looking at these two cases and the attention on them, it seems like communication and being ultra tight-lipped may have contributed to a major problem. The public feels like there is little being done on the case when that's probably not at all true. It appears to us from looking at the police reports for both Rachel's case and Nick's case that they were pretty thoroughly investigated and that a ton of work was done in both cases. In fact, an investigator for another department that we consulted noted that the police report in Rachel's case demonstrated a very significant investigation. That doesn't feel satisfying when it doesn't result in the arrest of the suspect, and we certainly understand there may be other reasons for these remaining unsolved, and so we will get into those.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Let's talk about the specific allegations that have come to light about the Gilbert Police Department and address those. Both of the allegations stem from perhaps the same side of the coin, how Gilbert PD are instructed to respond to the community crime calls. According to local news sources, there are two primary allegations. The first one is called Priority Zero. For years, Gilbert has been ranked among the safest cities in America. In fact, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Programs 2022, ranked Gilbert as the second safest city among the 100 largest cities. However, according to former town council member Bill Spence, there are doubts that the data shared with this reporting system is accurate. According to former councilman Spence, the alleged issue traces back close to 10 years when he says the police department changed how emergency calls were categorized. During a public meeting, Spence described a conversation he says he had with a fellow councilman and former Gilbert Police Commander Kenny Buckland in July of 2025. Spence said that during their telephone discussion, Buckland made several concerning comments about policies put in place under former police chief Tim Dorn. At the center of the allegation is something called Priority Zero. This is a call classification that Spence says did not previously exist in standard reporting systems that was implemented in 2005 and was ended in 2022. Typically, emergency calls are ranked from priority one through four. Priority one is the highest priority, an immediate life-threatening emergency, while priority four is more of a routine, non-emergency incident like maybe a cat stuck in a tree.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Wait, Ashley, I know this is not the time because this is serious, but still, I'm gonna tell you a story about my small town response calls. A year or two ago, my neighbor's cat got stuck on the roof of another neighbor, and it was this extremely steep flat roof. No clue how the cat actually made it up there, but it was stuck and apparently yowling all night. And in the morning, the neighbor called the non-emergency line. The fire department showed up with the Christmas wreath on the front of their truck and got out their really tall ladder to climb up and retrieve and save the cat. It was like a Hallmark Christmas movie. Your town is always cosplaying Hallmark movie.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

It sure is. It's a one-horse town, so we have to make sure it's charming. That was a great example of a priority four, maybe even priority five, if that level were to even exist. Exactly. Okay, sorry, back to it. Spence claims that Gilbert Emergency Response System reclassified their top priority calls to priority zero. And this meant that thousands of calls were reassigned. It doesn't mean the calls didn't come in. It meant that they came in and went in a different bucket, which also meant fewer officers were needed in some of these responses based on priority category. What was formerly classified as priority one calls numbered at 15,000 calls, the most severe 500 calls were then moved to priority zero. For example, this meant that top priority calls cut out injury collisions and non-armed bank robberies, like if they just showed a note but didn't have a gun. Functionally, a priority zero call required the response of three units and one sergeant or lieutenant, while priority one calls, while still emergent, required the response of two available units with a supervisor advised of the situation.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Okay, Ashley, let's talk about that. This sounds like priority zero was created because a lack of staffing and or a more efficient method of resource allocation. That is to say, with not enough officers, they needed further distinction of prioritization of calls to prevent multiple officers from responding to things that really may have been quite acceptably handled by fewer officers. This sounds to me like either due to staffing reasons or budgetary reasons, or just because it seems like a more efficient structure and a true efficiency, like that maybe was the intention here.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yes, it sure does sound like that. And I've had a challenging time kind of wrapping my head around priority zero. We don't know the initial intention behind priority zero, but it makes sense that this could have been a very intentional choice. And actually, Bill Spence did share information about staffing numbers. According to Spence, Kenny Buckland said in 2010 that Corona Solutions, which is a data-driven software package that utilizes call data to determine staffing and scheduling needs of officers, identified the Gilbert PD police force load. However, he further said Chief of Police Tim Dorn, quote, fudged the numbers and changed the priorities so that it then appeared that fewer officers were needed than actually were because of this classification of data. Though it appeared that the department was well staffed with a growing population, according to Bucklin, he felt that they were understaffed based on the reality of the priority calls. Chief Dorn reportedly didn't hire again for the six years he remained on as chief. Basically, priority zero meant fewer officers patrolling, fewer officer-initiated calls, which means officers patrolling calling something in that they see because they're out and about. Those super high priority calls at zero priority had the fastest response times. So it looked like officers were responding extremely quickly when in reality the other emergency calls actually had lower response times.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Again, though, I want to go back to this. Was this because they didn't have the resources to hire, or was this just attempting to be a more efficient method of triaging calls? I mean, I've known of situations in surrounding towns to where I live, where the department would have liked to hire, but they didn't have the funding, so they just don't. It's really not about exactly what's perfect, but it's about managing a more holistic budget. And also, we don't know if there was pressure on this coming from the city with their budget as well. Look, we know funding for police is largely underfunded everywhere. And I'm going to tell you something crazy. We have a town within a few hours of us that just has a really very interesting history with police, and that is Cave Junction, Oregon. Cave Junction has a population of about 2,000 people, so it's very small. In 1980, the town rejected budget increases that were required in order for them to fund the police force. But they basically defunded their own police department in 1980, and never since have they funded it. For years, they relied on the Sheriff's Department to respond to their crimes. But with the county receiving less and less funding and with a massive slash in federal funding around 2012, funding of deputies to respond to cities without departments was decreased enough that basically they were looking at deputies only available to respond to crime in Cave Junction nine to five Monday through Friday. I don't know if you know this, Ashley, but a lot of criminals don't follow a regular work schedule like that. So the citizens of Cave Junction created their own security patrol, essentially. They call it CJ Patrol, Cave Junction Patrol. It's a citizen group that polices, they try to prevent crime, much like a security company. This is based on and a response to major budgetary issues. Point is that perhaps this initially started as a means of stretching a thin budget or trying to create full efficiencies. And we don't know the reasons for this, and we don't know why it persisted as long as it did, but it just doesn't sound to me like a bad idea.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Wouldn't it be really convenient if crimes did just happen from nine to five on most days? So we could, you know, just know when crime's out there happening. Yes. Chief Michael Solberg took the reins in 2017 and immediately started hiring more officers. And there is a current push to continue hiring officers now. Regardless of why priority zero was first started, we told you that with this program implemented, 15,000 emergency calls for service moved 14,500 of these calls into a different priority box. So only 500 calls remained as the most severe designation. These numbers were then used in 2022 crime reporting to the FBI, which we noted then allowed Gilbert to be designated as the second safest city in America. Spence made clear that this was not an intentional manipulation of reporting to the FBI, that it was a byproduct of the choices made around priority zero. If the wrong priority version of calls was reported to the FBI, this shift would dramatically change how crime appeared on paper, and that those altered figures were ultimately reported at the national level, contributing to Gilbert's reputation as one of the safest cities in the country. In an official statement, the town emphasized that crime statistics are not determined by how a call is initially labeled. Instead, they say reports are created only after officers investigate, review evidence, and apply the law. Dispatch categories, they argue, are simply a starting point and often change once more information becomes available. They also confirm that a priority zero category did exist but described it differently. According to the town, it was used only for the most urgent life-threatening emergencies, like armed robberies or severe crashes, allowing officers to respond even faster. All other calls, they say remained unchanged with no impact on response times. Councilman Buckland acknowledged that the decision to create priority zero was not created in an attempt to cover up or change crime reporting. In a written response, Buckland declined to publicly debate the issue, calling it, quote, one decision out of hundreds, made by a former chief with a long and distinguished career. It was not a matter of corruption, he said. The chief believed it was right. I had a different opinion. Buckland responded by saying, it is true that the former chief did not listen to the Corona Solutions software and went a different direction and created priority zero. Priority zero is now gone. To be clear, regardless of priority zero, Gilbert was and remains a very safe city compared to other large cities. Since 2022, they no longer are in the top 10, but still remain in the top 50 safest large cities in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

I'm just going to reiterate it again. I don't think we should be assigning intentional manipulation or malintent to this at all. There are a lot of programs at the government level that are attempted and fail, and that's the pursuit of efficiency and change and progress. I'll just give one example from a totally different area, and that is that President George W. Bush, in a bipartisan effort, signed in an educational plan called No Child Left Behind, which many of you may remember. It essentially sanctioned schools and defunded schools if they got poor test scores. So it really rewarded schools for getting every kid to test level on standardized testing. The idea was that every child would succeed, but now, in major criticisms of the program, this basically had teachers teaching just to the tests, and students of higher academic achievement were getting little to no attention as the focus was on bringing the last child, making sure they weren't left behind, and that was the way that schools were being funded. At any rate, part of progress is working toward new programs, better efficiencies, better solutions to thin budgets than just more funding. We need to talk about this. While I think this sounds like it could have been a very efficient program and maybe had really good ideas. And as Gilbert Police responded, the way that crime data are reported have nothing to do with the way that they prioritize calls. I think we just need to be very careful in the way that we consider this information. We are talking about this because it's important to us that we acknowledge and share the allegations as they make up part of the bigger picture of why local residents are unhappy with the Gilbert police. And we want to make sure we take as unbiased look at this as possible.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I agree, Em. And it's hard to parse out exactly what happened here and what this potentially means for police responses, staffing, or if it has any bearing on the success of solving cases and really should be at the front of the concern for the public, particularly since priority zero has since been abandoned and hiring has occurred within the police force.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yes. I think this really comes back to the frustrations of the public around the Gilbert Goons allegations as well. So if we're going to circle back to that again, because I can't stop doing that, it's really the same concerns that Gilbert Police isn't using the word gang, isn't responding appropriately to specific types of crimes, is changing crime designations to make it seem safer than it is, and crime is being allowed to go unchecked or not investigated fully. But I want to provide a counterargument to all of this because one, these are just allegations and we do not have hard evidence of intentional manipulation of anything. And two, I really think this is actually kind of a no-win situation for the police department. Here's what I mean. After we released last week's episode on the Preston Lorde murder and the Gilbert Goons, we were sent more videos of the Gilbert Goons fights from prior to Preston Lord's death. One particular compilation video created five years ago from AZ Central's account, and it's noted that it was created by Carly Heinmiller, compiles multiple videos of the goons' behaviors. This video is very disturbing. It shows their reckless, criminal, and violent behavior very clearly. However, we noted that in this video compilation, there are also many clips of the police arresting the goons, canine dogs being used, and police interventions. Police were responding to these incidents, and we know that police reopened assault cases to link them to the Gilbert Goons once they understood that they were working with a large hybrid gang. We have linked this video and other videos we're about to reference in the show notes if you want to take a look at them. There are recent videos on social media. We have identified about the Gilbert Goons and the police response to them, and this is really what spurs this conversation for me. We want to share some of the comments on these videos.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

One of the videos we have here is from 12 News in Arizona, and it was on April 8th of this year, so just last week. The headline of this video was that police found 150 teens gathered at a Gilbert pool party, and that the pool party had been advertised by flyers before officers arrived. There were comments on this video, and some of the comments were good for them. I hope they had fun. With everything going on in the world, the police are occupied with a teenage pool party. Crazy what makes news these days. Thank God I grew up without every move I made being documented or recorded. And then someone else said, Let them party. Stop being snitches.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

We have another video. Here's one from Arizonagram. It's on Instagram on January 8th of this year. The video that was posted was headlined, Not the Gilbert Goons, back at it again, with video credit to Hey, it's Summer A Z. This basically was a video about that the Gilbert police are using drones to track reckless e bike riders instead of engaging in dangerous pursuits and demonstrating and showing how they were using these drones to try to both stop illegally ridden e bikes that pose risks to pedestrians, drivers, and the riders themselves, and also. Educate them so that residents understood what electric bikes were legal to ride. Here are the comments, with the top-liked comment being: I believe law enforcement resources would be better focused on addressing more serious crimes than an e-bike. Another comment, wow, what a great use of department resources. Our biggest concern is definitely people riding bikes. And there were many, many other very similar comments. Another one, make Gilbert fun again. Some of the comments are in favor of the Gilbert PD using these resources, like, good, use the drones, track them and arrest them, and then charge them and the parents. But there are far fewer of that type. The majority of the comments on this are chastising the police for their use of resources to break up quote unquote teenage fun.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Here's the problem: you can't have it both ways. You can't expect the police to prevent crimes like the Gilbert Goon assaults and also then be frustrated when they intervene in situations where those conditions are created. This is an absolutely no-win situation for the police. You're mad that they didn't engage with far more intervention before Preston's death, but also mad that they're wasting time arresting juveniles for breaking into a pool or illegally riding e-bikes? Which is it? Crime control or more discretion? Gilbert tried the tack of let's let teens be teens, and it had a horrible tragic ending with the death of Preston Lorde. But the community cannot expect it both ways.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

I agree. I really feel for the Gilbert police, honestly. These officers leave home every day to put themselves into incredibly dangerous, disgusting, and traumatic situations, all in the name of keeping the community safe. And according to the community, they can do nothing right. I'll say it here, even though I know we have a lot more to talk about, but I think the officers themselves should not be held accountable by the wrongdoing of any kind of systemic policy or the orders that they're beholden to. The majority of law enforcement is out there doing really good work and self-sacrificing. And I think we as community members can be more respectful in general.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Absolutely agree. Right, same, yes. But in the spirit of making sure we are considering all sides and we don't just believe everything has always gone perfectly with Gilbert Law Enforcement, we do want to talk about another case of allegations. This case really focuses on practices of the town at higher levels, up to the town manager. This case is about document deletion and was brought forward by Gilbert resident Carissa Arnold. Carissa Arnold is a Gilbert, Arizona resident who shared her experience dealing with the Gilbert Police Department. She said that her first experience dealing with them left her feeling kind of unseen and unheard. Carissa's daughter was sexually assaulted and was continually harassed by her perpetrator after the assault. The police were repeatedly called to report the ongoing harassment, which was impacting her daughter's mental health in a very severe way. According to Carissa, the police report was, in her words, very bare bones. Carissa feels frustrated because she believes that the bare bones police report contributed to the charges being dropped. Carissa said numerous times that she places no blame on individual officers, but sees this as a staffing and policies issue. Her daughter was informed that she had the possibility of filing a civil suit and absolutely planned to do so. But because of what we are about to get into next, she will not be able to do that. Why? Because her interview, her perpetrator's interview, and the body cam footage are all gone. So let's make it clear that she could still work on filing a civil case, but the things she feels like she needs, according to Carissa, are gone, vanished into thin air through what they are alleging is a mass record deletion at the town level. On February 7th, 2026, the news source Gilbert Today reported that the Arizoni Attorney General's office is reviewing allegations from a Gilbert resident that top town staff destroyed and withheld police records, including those related to criminal investigations. Carissa brought this case forward based on evidence of her case document deletion with allegations that this affected other cases as well. In Carissa's case in particular, Carissa requested body-worn footage from her daughter's assault case and received the following response from the Gilbert Police Records Department. I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to address the body-worn camera footage you requested regarding reports. Unfortunately, I regret to inform you that the footage is no longer available due to it being past the retention period. We understand the importance of this footage and deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We take our retention policies very seriously to ensure compliance with legal requirements and to maintain the integrity of our data management practices. However, our department acknowledges that we should have taken proactive steps to ensure that the situation did not occur. We did not anticipate that the wait time would result in the footage being inaccessible, and we take full responsibility for this oversight. Please know that we are reviewing our processes to prevent such occurrences in the future. We value your understanding and patience in this matter. From what we can see in researching retention rules, the general retention rule for evidentiary/slash case-related footage is if the recording is part of an active criminal investigation, internal investigation, or potential civil liability, it must be retained until the final disposition of the case, including all appeals. So how was this footage that she needed deleted?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Clearly, this wasn't intentional, so how could such a grave misstep have happened? And does it extend to other cases? We don't have our hands on evidence of other document deletions, but Carissa Arnold filed a police report on December 15th, 2025, alleging criminal misconduct by the Gilbert town clerk, town attorney, and town manager, among other officials. Arnold claims she has evidence that records were deleted to conceal inadequate investigations into murders, teen violence, and other criminal cases. Gilbert denies any improper withholding or destruction of records, stating it receives thousands of records requests annually and works to respond properly. The police department referred the case to the Attorney General's office, which has assigned an agent to review the allegations. Interestingly, Patrick Banger was the Gilbert Town Manager for 14 years, but left his post near the end of 2025. He now works as the Glendale City Manager.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

So again, why are we talking about all of this with Rachel's case? This is just another example of some of the concerns around the Gilbert Police Department and their practices amongst the community, and as they see, mounting evidence of impropriety or incompetence. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

But I also think the focus on this being the Gilbert Police may be misplaced. For example, the Preston Lord case was in Queen Creek, and they did a bang up job, may I add. I hope we made that clear. They identified and charged the young men involved. I know there's frustration with waiting for those things to happen, but as explained in the previous episode, the justice system wheels turn slowly, but it doesn't mean that there is anything going wrong. And in fact, everything seems to be going right for justice in that case. The document deletion is really about the town higher-ups and may trickle down to impact the Gilbert police, but that also is not really their issue.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Right. But what we haven't talked about are the unsolved homicides. We have to get into Rachel, Nick, and other unsolved cases that plague the news in Gilbert and continue to put the spotlight and pressure on the Gilbert Police Department.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Okay, to do that, let's start with some data around unsolved homicides, actually. I think it's important that we look at Gilbert and think about what we're working with. We pulled some information about Gilbert Police and the actual data around arrests, solve rates, etc. According to Police Scorecard, which is a site that tracks data about police departments nationwide, they were looking most recently at a 10-year period from 2013 to 2023. During that time frame, Gilbert had 63,000 arrests in that 10-year period. We looked at comparable towns in the United States. These were identified based on similarity in size, demographics, and are a suburb of a larger city, as Gilbert is right next to Phoenix. Plano, Texas is almost identical to Gilbert in population, with about 290,000 residents and is an affluent suburb of Dallas, Texas. Plano, Texas, in the same time period had 77,727 arrests, slightly more than Gilbert's 63,000, but close. Plano does seem to have a higher violent crime rate than Gilbert and reportedly had 52 homicides in the 10-year period, while Gilbert only had 27. Again, demonstrating why Gilbert is perceived as a very safe place. 27, this is really low. That's two to three homicides per year in Gilbert, but the unsolved rate does tell us a little bit of a story. Gilbert has six unsolved homicides out of 27, making their solve rate 78%, while Plano, Texas only has three unsolved out of 52, making their solved rate 94%. Gilbert's solve rate, according to police scorecard, is lower than 70% of other departments. What does this mean though? It could mean nothing. It could be luck of the draw. We're talking about 27 homicides, 21 of which were solved. It could be just complexity in the cases that happened to happen in Gilbert. Maybe no other jurisdiction would have solved this in a different way. It could be that Gilbert had fewer resources, officers, or technology that could help solve crimes. And it could also be that the standard that the county attorney requires to convene a grand jury is higher. Sure, it could mean that the folks doing the work have less experience or that structurally there's less support for the detectives on the case. But in looking at two of those unsolved homicides, looking at those police reports, we can see that they really did a lot of work. And according to multiple investigators that we have chatted with throughout this case that do not live in Gilbert, Arizona or are not part of the Gilbert, Arizona Police Department, they see really, really significantly investigated cases.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yes, just to reiterate what you were saying, Emily, and looking carefully at the police reports for Rachel Hanson and Nick Cordova, we see thorough, strong investigations. For Rachel and Nick, the frustration among their families and the community is palpable because how can we look at these faces, see these strong investigations, both with very strong suspects, and not have them be solved? We think there are a few things potentially at play, and we're going to talk about those three things: communication and evidence, proactive versus reactive policing, and the culture of blame.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Okay, first up is communication. We said this earlier, and we've said this throughout. Gilbert Police Department is very tight-lipped. It is clear from police reports that the Gilbert Police Department investigated extensively and spent a lot of time and resources working these cases. There remains sort of a PR issue with Gilbert PD around are they investigating these cases sufficiently? We don't know if they've investigated every single angle because so much of the police reports are redacted. We don't know exactly what they did. What we can see is pretty impressive. But we can't help but wonder if part of the Gilbert PD PR issue is around their communication or lack thereof. This starts with just the families. Why not tell the families more details about why arrests can't be made yet? Even in the form of, look, we have a suspect, we have strong leads, or something like that, but we don't have physical evidence that ties in the crime, or we can't establish the connections in a way that the county attorney can charge them. We need more people to come forward. Just something to let them know kind of where they're headed with this case. We know that there was a person of interest established in Rachel's case. So if anyone has access to that through a Freedom of Information Act, why would the police not share with the family why that person can't be arrested at this point? Even in just a blanket way. The other thing is we don't know if any grand jury has ever been convened in any of these cases. I keep coming back to that, but remember that we have a constitutional right to an indictment by a grand jury. So we have to have evidence brought to a jury of our peers and the prosecutor shows them everything and says, hey, do we have enough evidence to charge this person with this crime? We don't know if this has happened already. It's possible that a grand jury has been convened in these cases, and the grand jury said, no, it's not enough yet. That's not enough evidence to indict somebody on murder, and so they can't move forward. And they have to gather a lot more evidence before they can try again. You can try a grand jury again. You cannot be tried twice in court for something that you have been charged with. But to bring an indictment, more evidence is gonna have to happen. Sometimes that evidence doesn't exist. In both the Nick and Rachel cases, they pulled a lot of items for DNA and fingerprint, but the suspects wore gloves and masks and maybe didn't leave behind evidence.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Another aspect of communication that we think may fuel the fire and may actually contribute to the inability to solve this, and this totally frustrates us too, is the lack of communication with the public. We see that the Gilbert Police Department will post on social media calls for information on these cases, but there was no press conference ever in both Rachel and Nick's cases. Why not have a press conference where all the news sources can report on these issues, can share the images or potential leads, and spur the community to know more? Yes, obviously that means filtering through more tips, but without those, clearly it didn't lead to any arrests.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

That really does frustrate me. With knowing that police pulled ring camera footage from the night of Rachel's murder, why not share whatever was on that to ask anyone who was on the footage to come forward in case they saw something or might know something? I have a suspicion that people who could have known something about the case didn't come forward because they actually had no idea that the person they were looking at could have been involved.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Right. Specifically, we talked to one source who was closely tied to what looked like a person of interest in Rachel's case, and they had no knowledge that their contact was tied to the case at all. This person was arrested by SWAT per the police report in relation to Rachel's murder, yet someone who was highly connected to them had never heard that they had been even potentially involved with the case. What if someone else close to that person or someone else related to the case may have been in a similar situation and never knew to come forward because the Gilbert police were so tight-lipped about the case?

SPEAKER_01 37:00

That's what I don't get. Police are just humans. And I know the general public are probably mostly a hot mess, but I feel like soliciting the help of others when you were stalled can be a way to jog a case and see if somebody knows something who might not even realize that they could. It feels frustrating to me that police didn't give priority to either Nick or Rachel's case to host a press conference, minimally. And guess what? The news did not travel. When we first started working on this case, a lot of Gilbert residents had never heard of Rachel's case.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

I'm still surprised to this day in a lot of our direct messages on Instagram and TikTok. We have people saying, I live in Gilbert and I had never heard of this case until your podcast. We need to talk about another complaint about the Gilbert PD. This is really about proactive and reactive policing. We already touched on this with the videos about the Gilbert goons that we were talking about, but let's reiterate this fully. We read a lot about proactive versus reactive policing, and of course, we want both. We need reactive policing. That means reacting to an active threat, which is obviously very critical. But we also want proactive policing, which is an attempt to reduce crime through things as simple as increased police presence in higher crime areas. Research on proactive policing shows efficacy, but also it's difficult to know how that applies to larger metropolitan areas. And guess what you do need with proactive policing? Resources, more budget, and more officers.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Not to sound bitter, but people don't like proactive policing. They think it's a waste of time, which I think it's not. I want to go back to giving the officers grace for their use of discretion around arresting teenagers, even who were drinking and stuff. They may have seen a lot of those interactions as rapport building and creating positive relationships to try to deter further criminal behavior that was more serious. It didn't work with the Gilbert Goons, but that was all before they had connected. All these various group assaults were connected to a single entity hybrid gang. Here's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

What do you think about all of these allegations and complaints against the Gilbert PD? Do you think that they are specifically problematic?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Well, I don't know. I see and hear what the community is saying, but also when I hear things like, oh, the Preston Lord case, they really messed that up. I want to shout. Well, I do shout. No, they didn't. They caught all those dudes and charged them with the most serious charges you can. But also, I get that the concern is they should have stopped those kids before. Did they willfully ignore a rising gang problem?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

That's really hard to know or pin down fully. We aren't part of the police. I think obviously hindsight is really 2020. And so it's easy to look back and say, you should have seen it all, but should they really?

SPEAKER_01 39:47

And hindsight bias is actually such a problem. We tend to really believe that we knew more than we did. We know from research that we will be like, oh, I knew it, but we didn't know it. We actually had no idea. And so they'll they'll take people like, how likely do you think this is to happen? This is what research researchers have done. How likely was this to happen? And people will say, Oh, there's a 20% chance of that. And then later they'll come back. And if that thing happened, they'll report that they thought it was like a 60% chance that that would be the outcome. The same thing happens with thriller books. I feel like in hindsight bias, we capture this all the time, Ashley. People who are constantly like, I knew it. I knew that was going to be the perpetrator. No, you didn't. You just knew that one of these like five characters was going to be the perpetrator. And now you're assigning that you think you knew all along it was this specific one. Probably you just thought it was like one of these few that everyone thought it was. Anyway, I'm just saying and making the point that it's really easy to look back and go, oh, they should have known that all of these teenage fights were all interconnected through this hybrid gang. When why would they have actually known that?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Also looking back to further the conversation about the potential that there was understaffing at Gilbert Police, why weren't they more proactive in these areas? I cannot imagine in any fiber of my body being a police officer and having to decide between going to, let's say, a domestic violence call, a DUI, or teenagers being unruly around the mall or somewhere. It is so hard to think about how police officers have to make those decisions and where you would respond. And it's so easy to look back and say, well, why didn't you go there? Why didn't you go to that call? Well, maybe it's because there were other calls that in that 30 seconds to 60 seconds in time seemed more either violent, dangerous, whatever reason they want to give. I don't want to be that person.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Oh, totally. And I will remind you that in the Preston Lord murder, the accounting of the 911 calls from the Queen Creek Police Department was essentially that they received a call about the party. They went and they looked at the party and they left because they needed to attend instead to a domestic violence call that happened around the same time. The officers triaged, decided the party didn't look like anything they needed to do anything about, went to the domestic call, then received calls about the assault on Preston and went back. Of course, it's easy for us to look at that and say, why wouldn't they have broken up that party? But here we are again. So it's just that hindsight bias is really damaging. And a good reminder that you can't have it both ways. I know it's so easy to judge from the outside, but we don't, we actually don't know what information Gilbert PD was working with there. I will say I think there is a social issue happening in Gilbert. I think the Rachel case and Nick case and Preston case, all happening in six years in what feels like a close-knit community that's supposed to be really safe. And then two of them remaining unsolved, and after the third one having this waiting period while it was being solved, really heightened focus on what the Gilbert PD was doing wrong in everyone's eyes. I can't negate the experiences of the families involved with these cases or the families of those who were assaulted by the Gilbert goons. But I do think there's something happening within the community where the community started to get upset and it has grown and grown into this roiling beast of dissatisfaction, whether that's warranted or not. I honestly look at these cases individually and looking in from the outside, I don't see the same level of incompetence that others allege. I see a police force working their tails off despite being hated by the community that they're working for. I am frustrated by the Gilbert Police Department's choice not to be more explicit with these cases and not to share them more widely in the media. That does feel like a missed step to me. But I also don't think the police botched these cases. I think police are humans and are doing their damn best. And maybe that's not good enough in every case, but humans are who we have at this point to rely on. Maybe we will have robot police in the future. That's scary. Seriously.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

But I get what you mean. It does seem like at this point it would be hard for the Gilbert PD to change their image in the absence of solving Rachel or Cases. We don't know what more they could have done to investigate them because we don't know what is fully in the police reports with all of the redacted information. So you and I can't weigh in and say, oh, they should have done this or they should have done that.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Right. And really nobody can. They know what they did and nobody else does. I'd love to see the Gilbert police lean into the community for support and help solving these cases, but I would also love to see the community lean into the police with respect for the work they do. I didn't think when we started this podcast, this episode, when we started seeing just all of the criticism of the Gilbert police that we would come out at the ends in favor of Gilbert PD. I think in looking at this through a really unbiased lens and actually looking at these police reports and looking at all of the data around them and looking at the allegations and complaints against the Gilbert police, it'd be hard to convince me that I'm totally wrong.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

I think anybody who listens to us and who has started this podcast from the beginning did not expect us to end up having this conversation. And I frankly did not expect to have it. I also want the listeners to know that we had these conversations behind the scenes where you would even be like, I don't even know if we're going to agree on this, but I'm going to say this. So we even had back and forths where in the end we thought to us, it looks like they did a pretty damn good job. Yeah, and they look like a normal police department investigating crimes. They do. And I think there are bigger questions about town leadership, and that could be a podcast for a different day. But I think when it comes to the police officers on the ground, both you and I and every single source we spoke with about interactions with the actual Gilbert police officers, they're doing a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

I know. And you know what is really crazy about this? The fact that we came to this stance after the only, only entity, the only people we have not talked to, the only sources are Gilbert Police.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

They could work on their communication. Upgrade. We are done here for today. Next episode, we are going to close this series about Rachel. Where do we go from here? Thank you so much for listening. Please take a moment to share, rate, and review us.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Thank you for listening. If you have any tips on the Rachel Hansen case, please call the Gilbert, Arizona Police Department or head to silentwitness.org to submit your tip. Visit our Patreon at the Creepy Book Club for early release, ad-free, extra episodes, and behind the scenes content. Music by Craig Reaver. Editing, production, research, and writing by the Creepy Book Club.