Murder Weapons for Sale: A Widow's Fight, Broken Windows and Who's Really Wearing the Badge

Arizona requires police departments to sell the guns used to murder their own officers. A bipartisan bill to fix that just got killed by the man who wrote it.

Also this week: a Jewish student center at the University of Arizona gets its windows smashed. Phoenix cops are clearing $400,000 a year, and it isn't their fault. And a volunteer group wearing badges and carrying guns across Arizona is not police, not regulated and not accountable to the state.

None of these involve a shooting. All of them ask the same question: who's actually looking out for the people in this system?

Under Arizona law since 2013, when police confiscate a firearm and it's no longer needed as evidence, agencies are required to sell it. Not allowed. Required. They cannot destroy it. The logic was that guns are property with value. Fine, that's a position. But nobody wrote an exception for guns used to murder people, including police officers.

On September 18, 2007, Phoenix Officer Nick Erfle and his partner stopped a man for jaywalking near 24th Street and Thomas. The man gave a fake name that came back with a warrant. As they moved to arrest him, he shot Erfle twice in the back of the head. Nick Erfle, a father of two who had beaten cancer, died an hour later. The shooter was killed by police the same day.

No trial, no conviction, so the gun sat in police storage for almost 19 years. His widow, Julie Erfle, found out by accident that it still existed and was supposed to be auctioned. "My biggest fear is that this gun is being given a second chance to harm another individual," she said. And: "It feels like this weapon is being given more rights than I am or than what my husband received."

She sued the city and Chief Matt Giordano. Phoenix agreed not to sell it, and Mayor Kate Gallego said the Legislature should change the law. But the city still can't legally destroy it.

So Erfle worked with Rep. Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, on HB 2861, letting victims ask for destruction of firearms used in serious crimes once they're no longer evidence. Not gun control. Victims' rights.

Support was everywhere. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell worked on the language and called a resale "a travesty." Sen. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the 2013 sell-the-guns law, said he had no problem ending it "to not create the appearance that we are profiting from murder." Police groups, prosecutors and the gun-rights Arizona Citizens Defense League all backed it.

Then Nguyen pulled his own bill in the last week for committee hearings, swapped in an unrelated striker amendment, and said there wasn't enough agreement for a vote. No public debate. No vote. Gone.

I don't know who got to whom. I know Julie Erfle has been fighting since 2007, her husband's murder weapon is still in a storage room, and the one bill that could have let her put it to rest died without a vote. If that doesn't make you angry, check your pulse.

On Saturday, February 15, a staff member found damage at the University of Arizona Hillel in Tucson: an object thrown at a large window had cracked the safety glass, and a smaller window was also hit. No one was inside, no message was left, and no nearby buildings were touched. Tucson Police and UA Police are both investigating.

I'm an Orthodox Jew, so let me tell you how this reads from the inside. Interim executive director Eddie Lang called it a continuation of hate speech that turns into action. He's right. It starts with words, moves to social media, then a swastika on a whiteboard, then "Dirty Jew" scratched into a dorm door, which happened at UA in 2023. Then something comes through your window at night.

Freshman Ziva Goldfine said she hopes it was an accident. I hope she's right. But I've been Jewish long enough to know the odds aren't great.

The response was right: Tucson's Jewish community security director moved fast, police moved fast, and Hillel added precautions. But security is reactive. What agencies can do is investigate these as potential hate crimes, not just vandalism, because the difference between a broken window and a broken window at a Jewish center is intent, and intent matters in statute and in life.

Phoenix New Times dug into the city's 2025 payroll: nearly 60 percent of the 424 city employees earning over $200,000 were from the police department. Six retired police employees were in the top ten, each around $390,000.

The lazy takes are "greedy cops" or "heroes deserve every penny." Both are wrong. Here's what's happening: Phoenix PD is roughly 500 officers short. It has budget authority for 3,125 sworn positions and about 2,636 filled, a gap that's existed since around 2020.

Short 500 officers, you either leave shifts empty or pay the people you have to work more. Phoenix chose the second. The department spent $98 million on overtime in one fiscal year, and 80 percent of it was mandatory, driven by staffing. Add shift differentials and the leave cash-out when a 25-year veteran who never took vacation finally retires, and you get a $390,000 year. All contractual. All legal.

Those officers didn't create the shortage, design the overtime system or write the contracts. They showed up and worked the shifts nobody else was there to fill. Blaming them for the overtime bill is like blaming the ER nurse for the hospital being understaffed. The nurse is just the one still standing at 3 a.m.

Is $98 million in overtime a problem? Yes. The city's own audit called its overtime tracking reactive and overly manual, and it needs real controls. But the fix is hiring the 500 cops you're short, so the ones you have don't have to work themselves into the ground. The good news: recent reporting showed more hires than departures for the first time in years.

The Arizona Rangers wear badges, carry sidearms, show up at parades and community events, and work alongside real agencies. Their history goes back to the territorial Rangers of 1901. Great origin story. Very Arizona.

Here's what they are not: police. State law says it plainly. The Rangers "do not possess any law enforcement or investigative powers that are not provided or established in law for all citizens." They're an unpaid civilian auxiliary, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Their commander reportedly made false claims about SWAT and K-9 experience. Sen. Mark Finchem and Sen. Wendy Rogers introduced SB 1071 to strip the group's statutory recognition and its exemption from security guard licensing. The Rangers call the bill inaccurate and point to tens of thousands of donated volunteer hours a year.

My take: the volunteers do useful work, and their dedication is real. But they look like police and aren't. Their badges reportedly carry a state seal the Secretary of State's office says they aren't authorized to use. There's no POST certification, no academy and no state oversight body. A civilian in a parking lot can't tell a sworn officer from a volunteer in a good uniform, and every time that happens, the real badge is worth a little less.

The answer isn't to erase them. It's to fix the structure: DPS oversight or a state authority for auxiliaries, background checks, training standards and a clear visual difference from sworn officers. Reform them. Don't erase them. And make sure everyone wearing a badge in this state has earned it.

A widow who can't get the state to destroy the gun that killed her husband. A Jewish student center on edge. A department paying for a shortage it didn't choose. A volunteer group that needs guardrails. This is policing beyond the body cam: policy, money and accountability, the boring stuff that decides whether the people who protect this state are protected themselves.

The Ranger 56 fundraisers for the Skankey and Bennett families continued in Kingman on February 22, with donations through the FOP Lodge 32 Foundation and the Arizona State Troopers Association. We are in service.

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This piece is adapted from Episode 3 of The Valley 10-8 podcast, first published Feb. 19, 2026, and reflects public reporting, legislative records and agency statements at the time; HB 2861, SB 1071 and the investigations described may have developed since. Corrections and information: [email protected].