(Eff. 7/1/25)

A. Subject to legislative appropriation, the department shall maintain a division known as the major incident division.

B. The superintendent of the major incident division shall be selected on the basis of training and experience and have a minimum of five years of experience in the administration of law enforcement and be a certified peace officer.

C. The director may adopt rules governing the policies, procedures and administration of all activities of the major incident division.

D. The major incident division shall:

1. Use investigators who are certified by the Arizona peace officer standards and training board or who were sworn employees of a federal, state, county or local law enforcement agency, who have demonstrated the skills, knowledge, abilities and training as approved by the director and who have successfully completed investigative courses identified by the director and approved by the Arizona peace officer standards and training board to conduct independent investigations of critical force incidents. If an investigator described in this paragraph was employed by a federal, state, county or local law enforcement agency, the investigator must:

(a) Have retired or left the law enforcement agency in good standing.

(b) Not have been under investigation at the time of retirement or resignation from the law enforcement agency.

(c) Not have retired or resigned in lieu of termination or discipline.

(d) If a veteran of the United States military, have been honorably discharged.

2. At the written request of a chief of police or a county sheriff, investigate a criminal allegation against a peace officer who is employed by the law enforcement agency.

E. Each law enforcement agency in this state shall require the major incident division, a regional law enforcement task force or another law enforcement agency to perform the criminal investigation of any critical force incidents in this state.

F. For the purposes of this section, "critical force incident" means:

1. Any discharge of a firearm by a peace officer, due to a use of force encounter, regardless of whether it results in the injury or death of an individual.

2. An incident involving a peace officer’s intended use of deadly force or use of force by any other means that results in death or serious bodily injury of another person, either during an on-duty incident or off-duty incident while acting under the color of authority.