{"id":22941,"date":"2026-05-18T23:20:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/police-official-in-arizona-is-fired-after-trying-to-stoke-violence-at-anti-ice-rally\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T23:20:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:20:59","slug":"police-official-in-arizona-is-fired-after-trying-to-stoke-violence-at-anti-ice-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/police-official-in-arizona-is-fired-after-trying-to-stoke-violence-at-anti-ice-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"Police official in Arizona is fired after trying to stoke violence at anti-ICE rally"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Phoenix-area police official was fired last week after videos showed him appearing intent on stoking violence while off duty at a high school rally against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n

The story of Dusten Mullen, who had served as a sergeant for the Chandler Police Department, pairs well with other stories of MAGA provocateurs at ICE protests. According to KNXV-TV in Phoenix<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Last month, body camera video showed tense moments as off-duty Sergeant Dusten Mullen told a Chandler police officer he was at the protest with a goal to get kids in jail if they wanted to break the law.<\/em><\/p>\n

“My plan is legitimately to just let them all assault me, and you guys arrest them all,” Mullen could be heard saying, “ I will keep it on film. I also have other people filming from a distance, so my goal would be to get all these kids in jail if they want to break the law.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Mullen was placed on administrative leave in April as the Phoenix Police Department investigated Mullen’s involvement in the protest, which escalated to the arrest of one teenager.<\/em><\/p>\n

A Chandler police report says that Mullen confronted students and was asked to move to avoid further escalation.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You can watch footage of Mullen talking about trying to get protesters to assault him here<\/a>. His lawyer told KNXV-TV that he would challenge the decision in court, saying the internal investigation wasn’t “thorough and fair” and that Mullen was disappointed yet unsurprised by his firing.<\/p>\n

The news makes things a bit awkward for a MAGA movement that has pushed narratives about liberals sowing chaos and stoking violence at protests. Earlier this year, Media Matters for America reported on<\/a> the trend of conservative influencers attempting to cast aspersions on anti-ICE protests by promoting baseless claims about liberal “agitators.”<\/p>\n

But such actual behavior seems to keeps happening among conservatives.<\/p>\n

For example, there’s Jake Lang, a Jan. 6 insurrectionist who was pardoned by President Donald Trump<\/a>. His game is literally agitation<\/a>and he garnered attention in Minneapolis in January when he was chased away by counterprotesters<\/a> who opposed his efforts to hold a racist, xenophobic rally decrying Somali people and Muslims, as well as his plans to burn a Quran.<\/p>\n

And let’s not forget the story of the right-wing provocateur who goes by Zak X — an associate of Lang’s<\/a> who was charged with fifth-degree assault<\/a> in Minneapolis late last year after allegedly punching a man in the head at an anti-ICE rally. The county prosecutor said the alleged crime<\/a> amounted to “assaulting a protester whose views he disagreed with.”<\/p>\n

X, who changed his name from Zachary Stumpf, has said<\/a> the act was self-defense. (You can watch a video of the encounter here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

All of this seems like ample reason for Americans to question the narratives about liberal “agitators” looking for trouble at protests.<\/p>\n

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Zak X has been arrested, again. Currently in custody on probable cause 3rd degree assault. A brief video clip appeared to catch the altercation. Zak X believed to be in the black hoodie is approached by someone in blue who may have touched or thrown hands. pic.twitter.com\/UmJlzScx7n<\/a><\/p>\n

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls)”https:\/\/twitter.com\/CrimeWatchMpls\/status\/2038278892511691050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 29, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May. 18, 2026, 3:50 PM EDT A Phoenix-area police official was fired last week after videos showed him appearing intent on stoking violence while off duty at a high school rally against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The story of Dusten Mullen, who had served as a sergeant for the Chandler Police Department, pairs well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}