(First InMaricopa) Maricopa Police Department released details to InMaricopa of a five-hour, multi-agency traffic enforcement operation conducted Monday, following questions about its role in the detail early this week along State Route 347.
The operation, titled “Operation Heavy Presence,” brought together 21 officers and deputies from MPD, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, Arizona Department of Public Safety, Gila River Police Department and Ak-Chin Police Department.
Enforcement efforts focused primarily on John Wayne Parkway and the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway.
The release comes after MPD confirmed to InMaricopa that it participated in a traffic enforcement detail along SR 347 north of Maricopa — the same detail that prompted claims from a rural Arizona legal observer group that ICE vehicles were present.
Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple denied those claims earlier this week, calling them “irresponsible and false.”
According to MPD, Operation Heavy Presence resulted in 99 traffic stops, 78 citations and one DUI arrest during the five-hour effort.
Officers used a City of Maricopa dump truck as a visual enforcement tool to identify speeding drivers, a strategy intended to enhance monitoring while maintaining a visible presence.
“Safety is our number one concern and we need your help. We can’t do it alone,” said Traffic Sgt. Hal Koozer. “Operations like this are designed to slow drivers down and prevent serious crashes before they happen.”
The department said the initiative was funded through a grant from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and emphasized that speeding and impaired driving remain leading causes of serious injury and fatal crashes.
Motorists are reminded to obey posted speed limits and drive attentively.
![Yasik Delores, 17, was last seen Tuesday evening in the Tortosa neighborhood. [Maricopa Police Department]](https://inmaricopa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/20260325-missing-teen-300x198.jpg)
![Yasik Delores, 17, was last seen Tuesday evening in the Tortosa neighborhood. [Maricopa Police Department]](https://inmaricopa.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/20260325-missing-teen-150x150.jpg)
16 Responses
I’m glad the police are taking action against the rising car accidents and close calls. It only gets worse with more cars on the road and the increase of bikes/scooter riders. The sheriff is right about the ICE claims being irresponsible. People need to hold their horses when it comes to ICE because it’s not the same throughout the country. Especially the people that contribute to the increasing tension by actively “protesting” or making it more difficult for ICE to do their job, even if mistakes are made.
Plus that cop pic is tuff as muff.
“…making it more difficult for ICE to do their job, even if mistakes are made.”
If only the “mistakes” being made were far and few between, as well as not being big.
Yes, how dare people exercise their first amendment rights and protest.
“Monday’s with Koozer!”.. …… too soon?
What?
It’s always too soon for your jokes…
What rural Arizona legal observer group? Name(s), Address, Phone#, Location, # of Members?????
I don’t know why you need all of that, but the group is named (and linked) on the original article as well as the “Sheriff dismisses ICE patrol claims along SR 347 as ‘crying wolf’ “.
Here’s the link so you don’t have to click through the articles. https://www.raze.org/
The original article had a grainy photo of a lone unmarked pickup stopping a motorist that local pro open border anti Federal immigration enforcement groups immediately called out as an ICE stop, never mind that ICE does not stop individual cars on Arizona state highways, like an immigration officer can see a driver whizzing past at 80MPH and say “yeah lets stop that guy” I called it as a traffic enforcement detail and asked if RAZE and the Pueblo people even knew what they were talking about, appears they did not, because it was just that, what we have seen on that stretch of the 347 for years, a traffic enforcement detail.
Yes, it would be difficult for ICE to racially profile the driver if they drove past that fast…
I think the point of this story is maybe people should relax and not cry wolf.
When ICE comes, we will know it. These people are not known for their stealth or subtle movements. That’s the whole point. It’s a reality show to distract us from our President’s name coming up in the Epstein files more times than “Epstein”…
I respect your perspective and how you are making your point. I really do. And I appreciate you acknowledging there have been mistakes made.
But this is not a mistake. This is very deliberate: https://youtu.be/AVvKLT2q2Vs?si=w_puz3p_xRTUjbu9
That’s not a paid agitator nor an illegal immigrant. Her only crime was being autistic and the color of her skin.
Love it. Keep up the good work!
Dear Chief Goodman, Maricopa Arizona is not Pasadena CA. We want you to enforce all the laws, not just the ones that are politically neutral.
Dear AG Pam Bondi, please listen to “THE” Blake Ranch and do the same.
Enforce all the laws, including the one requiring you to release “ALL” the Epstein files
And then take a lesson from the UK and actually prosecute “ALL” the pedophiles, even if they are the Clintons or Les Wexner or … oh, I don’t know… “your” boss?
Anything the UK does we should do the opposite. There are more illegals in the UK and Europe as a whole that even if they stopped coming in, they would still be the majority population in a few years.
Also illegals in Europe have way more privilege from natives, so much so that they rarely get arrested even when their caught on camera harrassing people and commiting crimes. It’s the opposite when a native UKainian or Germaneseian criticizes the government online, they get arrested for “hate speech” even though they support “free speech”.
Although there is numerous pieces of evidence Trump would be a pedophile, Israel doesn’t see it that way, so obviously that’s not true. Other than that, Trump is to Epstein as Obama is to Osama, meaning Osama died under Obama’s term and so did Epstein under Trump, so it’s a good thing. Unless Epstein is alive and chilling in Israel.
Most of this response is a word salad that I genuinely cannot decipher…
I can’t tell if you’re being serious about Trump (along with former President Clinton) being a pedophile so I will just say this:
As much as I mocked the Q-Anon crowd… it appears they were more on the money than they were given credit for. Democrats weren’t eating babies but it does appear that a secret cabal of the rich and powerful were running a sex trafficking ring.
I would think “pedophiles are bad” is something we could all agree on regardless of politics and I applaud those MAGAs like MTG and (God help me) The Q Shaman who have broken with Trump over it.
Anyone left in MAGA at this point clearly never cared about it in the first place and therefore surrender their “moral majority “.