COOLIDGE, AZ — Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller told the Coolidge City Council that the Coolidge crime trends report shows homicides and property crimes have fallen sharply while prosecutions for assaults, drug trafficking and weapons offenses are climbing. He delivered the update on May 11, 2026. His message to residents: serious crime in their neighborhoods is being prosecuted more aggressively, and certain categories are now priority targets.
Homicides Down 86%, Other Charges Rising
Miller led with the headline figure for residents. “Homicides are down 86% as of last year,” he said. In 2023, Coolidge recorded seven first-degree murder cases. That dropped to three in 2024 and just one in 2025.
However, several other prosecution categories climbed during the same period. Aggravated assault prosecutions nearly doubled from 14 in 2024 to 27 in 2025. Mayor Jon Thompson said the rising assault numbers could eventually push homicide numbers up.
Miller addressed that concern directly. “This is not a contradiction,” he said. The office is intervening earlier and “charging much more aggressively on these types of crimes, before violence escalates to the most serious level, to those homicide levels.”
In response to the mayor’s question, Miller said early intervention is the goal. Beyond aggressive prosecution, his office also draws on victim services, diversion programs, and treatment options such as VA facilities when appropriate.
Property Crime Falling in Coolidge
Miller specifically addressed quality-of-life crimes that affect residents and small businesses. “Property crime is in fact declining here in Coolidge,” he said. Theft charges dropped by more than half, from 21 in 2024 to nine in 2025. Vehicle theft fell from a peak of 12 in 2024 to four last year. Burglaries went from 18 in 2024 to five in 2025.
“Residents and business owners should know that these quality-of-life crimes are really trending in the right direction,” Miller said.
A Localized Approach to Prosecution
Miller said his office is committed to bringing every available resource into individual communities. He told the council that prosecutors from his office physically sit inside the Coolidge Police Department when staffing allows. That setup, he said, lets him hear directly from officers about what is happening on Coolidge streets. Miller said his office mapped 2025 crime data by location and plans to provide more specific information to the police chief.
The maps, Miller said, show crime concentration shifting over the three-year period. He pointed to earlier concentrations around the State Route 87 corridor near Main Street, then said the 2025 map appeared more spread out across the city, including the east side. Miller said his office is working with the police chief to understand why.
“One of the policies in my office was to prosecute locally, understand what’s happening in your community,” Miller said. He noted Maricopa sees more gun and violent cases than Coolidge. Meanwhile, Superior is seeing its crime rate fall significantly while prosecutions there are climbing. Miller said federal detention operations involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security could have something to do with Superior’s decline.
Five Priority Areas for Coolidge Crime Trends
Miller outlined five categories his administration tracks closely. Each represents a focus area for prosecution in Coolidge.
- Homicides: Down 86% over three years, from seven cases in 2023 to one in 2025.
- Violent offender accountability: Aggravated assault prosecutions rose from 14 in 2024 to 27 in 2025, including attacks on first responders, strangulation in domestic violence cases, and deadly weapons offenses.
- Drug enforcement: Drug offenses remained the largest crime category, with 100 charges in 2025. Methamphetamines and amphetamines now account for 65% of those charges. Sale and trafficking charges rose from one in 2024 to six in 2025. Miller said one drug incident in 2025 occurred near a school zone, which triggers enhanced penalties under Arizona law.
- Weapons and firearms: Weapons offenses rose from five in 2024 to nine in 2025. Miller said his administration is now charging felons caught with guns and people who supply weapons used in other felonies for the first time.
- Property crime: Theft, vehicle theft, and burglary charges all dropped sharply.
On the weapons category, Miller said his office is now prosecuting people who are legally barred from owning firearms, meaning those with prior felony convictions or who have not received a rights restoration, as well as people who supply weapons used to commit other crimes. “We’re very much defenders of the Second Amendment,” he said, but added that anyone whose rights have been revoked should not be carrying a gun.
Repeat Offenders Are the Focus
Miller said his prosecutors are concentrating resources on a specific population. “What we’re seeing all across Pinal County is that the people who are committing crime are the people who have already committed crime, those repeat offenders, so we’re trying to target those folks,” he told the council.
Miller said his office is no longer offering plea deals in some of the most violent cases. He told the council those defendants should go to trial and be locked up for as long as possible. In 2025, Miller said 81% of the crimes his office charged in Coolidge were felony-level cases. That figure reflects what Miller described as the priority of his administration.
Thompson asked whether the declining numbers reflected cases not moving forward or being reduced to lesser charges. Miller said the figures represent prosecutions his office actually filed, not arrests police submitted, so they reflect cases his office pursued. He added that the 81% felony rate has stayed consistent year over year, meaning his office is not pleading cases down to misdemeanors.
“The focus of my administration are on those repeat offenders, as I mentioned, violent criminals, sex offenses, and drug offenses,” he said.
New Charges for Sexual Extortion and Failure to Register
The office filed 12 sexual offense charges in 2025. Among them were new charge types Miller cited, including sexual extortion, which he said reflects how these crimes are evolving.
Additionally, three people were charged with felony failure to register as a sex offender. That category, Miller said, was absent in many prior years. Miller said past administrations sometimes pushed those cases aside or charged them as misdemeanors. His office now gives offenders warnings, he said, but charges them with felonies when they repeatedly refuse to register.
“We’re targeting even those types of crimes that have been dismissed in a lot of places, like failure to register as a sex offender,” Miller said.
He said the last thing his office wants is an unregistered offender near a city park or school.
DUI Cases Remain a Concern
Miller also flagged impaired driving as a continuing concern. DUI charges in Coolidge remain very high. Across Pinal County, his office responds to nearly one DUI-related death every week. One occurred the week before the presentation.
He said these DUI crimes affect people just out having a good time, teens, and people leaving for graduation, noting that graduation season was approaching.
Miller said he is delivering similar crime updates to other city councils across Pinal County. He told the council Florence was next. In February, he briefed the San Tan Valley Town Council on prosecuted crime in that community. Each city, he said, has different concerns and different data, which is why his office presents to each council separately.
