How we reported this week’s heat death story

This article is part of a package of stories and videos that show the challenges extreme heat poses in Phoenix and the Valley to politicians, policymakers, frontline emergency workers, residents, and the people living on the streets who are most likely to die from it.

I met Crystal Lee Anderson at a community meeting at Memorial Hall in Steele Indian School Park in mid-April. She and other homeless and formerly homeless people were there to speak during the public comment period and oppose the night’s topic: a controversial ordinance restricting medical care and food distribution in city parks. 

After the meeting, I introduced myself. I was new to the city and just weeks into my role at Phoenix New Times. Homeless issues were one of my beats and this was one of my first times out reporting on it. I jotted down the names and numbers of those willing to share their story with me later. Looking back now, Crystal was the first name on my haphazardly scribbled list. 

But we never got a chance to speak. 

Crystal was found dead next to her belongings in a dirt lot near train tracks in Phoenix’s Warehouse District on Aug 2. She died of heat. “Environmental heat exposure in the setting of methamphetamine intoxication,” the medical examiner’s report read. The nearest shelter and cooling center was only half a mile away. 

When I first started reporting on homeless issues in Phoenix I knew heat would be a big part of my reporting. But I didn’t fully realize how much impact it would have. Now six months in, including one full summer, I’m just starting to understand the totality of heat, the dangers it poses, and how difficult it can be to prepare for, respond to and fight. 

I’ve never had a beat where I’ve felt my sources were in so much danger from such an uncontrollable force. So far two people I’ve met have died or nearly died. Several have been hospitalized for heat-related illnesses. And those are just the people I’ve managed to stay in touch with. I’ve met others in passing. I don’t know how they are doing and maybe never will. One man in particular comes to mind often — a military vet around my dad’s age. I hope he’s OK. 

My reporting for my recent story on heat started the day I got the public records request for the videos of Devin Alford’s death. Alford died in Phoenix police custody on June 28. Police were responding to a call about a man acting erratically in a bank parking lot. The first officer on the scene handcuffed Alford. Then he stopped breathing. Alone in my air-conditioned living room in early July, I watched about 40 minutes of body-camera footage from the two officers who responded to the call, from start to finish. I was struck by how hard the first officer who arrived tried to save Alford’s life. For nearly five minutes he performed chest compressions on Alford by himself, begging the unconscious man in front of him to pull through. 

Heat never crossed my mind. I, like the officers who responded, thought Alford had only overdosed. Only later did I realize how much heat had complicated the situation. 

Anna’s heat stroke a couple of weeks later drove the point home.

I was about to leave the city for a weekend day trip the Saturday morning that Sophia Elicia, an advocate who provides aid to people living in the encampment near downtown Phoenix known as The Zone, called to tell me about Anna. Anna, who she knew from her aid work, had just gone to the hospital with heat stroke and Elicia and her partner were there when it happened. 

When they came across Anna, security guards and an EMT from the nearby Key Campus, a homeless solutions hub, were trying to help her. The EMT gave Anna Narcan and put a cool towel on her. Elicia and her partner, concerned about heat stroke, urged them to call 911. They refused. Elicia called 911 anyway. The fire department arrived and placed Anna in an ice immersion bag. Elicia and her partner confronted the EMT and the security guards about their refusal to call 911. The security guards shoved them to the ground.

I immediately turned the car around and drove down to The Zone. By the time Elicia called, Anna had already been taken to the hospital. When we walked the scene in the hours afterward, we could see remnants of the morning’s chaos. Refuse from the emergency response was scattered around. The blanket she sat on was crumpled up on the curb.   

And it was hot. I was outside talking to a witness and learning what happened for less than an hour. It wiped me out. I was able to go inside for the rest of the day. Everyone I saw or spoke with likely did not. 

Heat dominated my reporting this summer. Twice, people who lived in the SOS lot, a city-run outdoor homeless encampment, found my business card and reached out about their concerns with heat. When a young man emailed me in early July about his brother who was homeless and found dead at an intersection in Tempe, I immediately wondered if heat was part of the cause. 

There was a two-day stretch where I interviewed a veteran living in a tent in the backyard of a home. I remember trying to schedule our meetings early enough to avoid the heat. We didn’t succeed. Instead, we sat together talking in the shade of a tarp sweating for hours as I listened to the twists and turns of the story. The temperature steadily climbed upwards towards 113 degrees.

My exposure to death and suffering on the streets covering this beat is nothing compared to what some of my sources go through. I remember speaking to one about the “Transient Line List” and the “Confirmed Heat Related Deaths List” kept by the Maricopa County Medical Examiners Office. She told me she regularly consults the lists to see if her friends are still alive. 

When I relayed Crystal’s cause of death to Elizabeth Venable, she was relieved. Venable, the founder of the Fund for Empowerment and organizer of the group Crystal attended the April meeting with, said there had been rumors among her people that Crystal had been raped and beaten to death. She was glad that wasn’t the case. But the truth wasn’t much better.

“Substance and heat. I guess it’s less violent,” Venable wrote in a text. “The violence is in the exposure.” 

I received Crystal’s medical examiner’s report in early October. According to the preliminary investigative notes, it was sunny and 107 degrees that day. The ground was 170 degrees. The investigator described the scene where she was found. Crystal lay on the dirt with her belongings nearby. She wore a black sports bra, black shorts, and blue socks. Around her neck was a yellow metal necklace with a heart pendant.

Her body temperature was 160.5 degrees Fahrenheit. “The decedent was hot to the touch,” the investigator wrote.