Northeast Phoenix voters will get the chance to decide how much prior arrests and former gang association should count when weighing whether to elect Matt Evans to the city council on Nov. 3.
Matt Evans, a 38-year-old software engineer and one of three people running for an open seat in the city's District 2, was open about his troubled past and addiction to opioids, talking about it in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
The other District 2 candidates are lawyer Danny Mazza and business owner Julie Read. Councilman Jim Waring, a conservative who’s been on the council since 2012, is term-limited. Three other Phoenix council spots are up for grabs this year.
Evans ran unsuccessfully against Mayor Kate Gallego in 2024. The conservative group
Turning Point Action has endorsed all three candidates for the District 2 seat.
Court records detail his 2011 arrest after a Scottsdale police investigation and his deferred prosecution for marijuana possession when he was in his early 20s.
Evans ran with friends who were in a Phoenix gang called 40 Block, which police determined had one member who fatally shot a 17-year-old boy.
Evans said he regrets many of the decisions he made when he was younger but emphasizes that he found religion and stopped using drugs years ago to take care of his children. He also said he’s a victim of pharmaceutical companies: “They're the real criminals, man.”
“I've been through all walks of life from the bottom to the top and so I'm the only one that has the perspective of every angle,” he said. "Corrupt, career politicians are the ones making the decisions. They don't know what it's like to grow up poor."
Many District 2 residents have lived through poverty and legal troubles like he has, he said, and those experiences help make him the "best candidate." He plans to be a "firebrand" on the council who will help lead a new, conservative contingent of council members who will do more for the district's people.
After years of raising children and being involved in the community, he’s ready to push for mandatory drug treatment for homeless people, more cops on the street and fewer “socialists” on the council.
Besides Turning Point, he's endorsed by several prominent local conservatives including Republican Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan; Sam Stone, the chief of staff for Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, and state Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale, who lost his bid in July for Arizona's 1st Congressional District seat to fellow Republican and former professional football player Jay Feely.
Court records detail Evans' 2011 drug bust
An investigation into Evans began in early 2011, court records show, when Scottsdale police received complaints from the manager of his north Scottsdale apartment complex about possible drug dealing. A Department of Public Safety detective told police they believed Evans was associated with a gang.
Police put surveillance on the apartment in late April 2011. As officers watched, Evans was seen passing something to a man in a vehicle in the complex parking lot and receiving cash he pocketed. Police stopped the man who met with Evans and he admitted buying an oxycodone pill from Evans. Police raided Evans’ apartment later in the day, finding two oxycodone pills and about two ounces of marijuana.
Tailed as he drove to a gas station, police arrested Evans at gunpoint.
Possessing any amount of marijuana was still a felony in Arizona for most people that year. Arizona voters had legalized medical marijuana in November 2010, and the law allowing patients to possess up to 2.5 ounces of pot was in effect by April of the next year.
The state only started issuing temporary medical marijuana cards that month, and Evans didn't have one. Arizona's first dispensary for patients opened in December 2012. Voters approved a recreational marijuana law in 2020 that allows for possession of up to an ounce of flower and decreased enforcement of other state marijuana crimes.
Marijuana remains illegal under federal law despite a move to reschedule its status under the federal Drug Control Act.
Records show Evans told police he sold small amounts of marijuana, oxycodone and percocet from the apartment, and he admitted he had sold a pill to the man in the vehicle for $25.
He “expressed remorse” for his illegal activity and said he would stop immediately.
Police said gang, but Evans thought of it as a ‘brotherhood’
Evans told The Republic he went to a party where oxycodone was being passed around, and he got hooked after “one hit.” His downhill slide came quickly.
“You start hanging out with people that are not the people you should probably be hanging out with and that's sort of how my affiliation started,” Evans said.
He said he was “never, like, an official member of a 40 Block," a multi-racial, north-Phoenix gang that he said started as a party crew. He described it as a “brotherhood” of his friends.
“We're friends and this is the neighborhood we grew up in and it sounded like a cool name,” he said.
Police believe he was “either a member or an associate of the gang,” according to a probable cause statement in the court records.
In a March 2, 2011, Republic article, police said gang consisted of many former students from Paradise Valley High School — which Evans had attended — and that the group had over time gone "from hosting parties" to committing crimes including home invasions and armed robberies.
No evidence shows Evans was involved in more serious crimes. He denied that the group, which was officially designated a gang by authorities, was engaged in violence, although police had found brass knuckles in his apartment during the raid.
About the same time DPS told Scottsdale police their suspicions about Evans, news media accounts detailed the arrests of 24 people suspected of membership in the gang, including Corey Garner, the suspect in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Daniel Ramirez in 2007. The rest faced criminal charges including fraud, forgery, identity theft and drug sales.
Garner had reached over a fence and sprayed bullets into a patio during a Fourth of July party as revenge for a shooting by a rival gang, The Republic article states. Ramirez wasn't associated with gang members.
Anonymous X.com blogger William Coffin, who first posted about Evans’ background on Oct. 1, 2026, noted that Evans has posted about Garner on social media, including on Jan. 2, 2024, the day Garner got out of prison after his March 2012 conviction.
“Freedom! Corey out after 13 years! welcome back to the free world!” Evans wrote above a photo of his brother, Mike, and Garner.
Evans admits past problems, praises ‘second chance’
Evans had been arrested previously for disorderly conduct and marijuana possession.
After the raid, police wanted Evans charged with possession of narcotic drugs and marijuana for sale, plus disorderly conduct.
The Maricopa County Attorney's Office moved to prosecute Evans on two Class 6 felonies, one for marijuana possession and another for the baggie it was contained in, which was considered paraphernalia.
In an outcome common for marijuana charges back then, prosecutors suspended the criminal counts and let him take a drug-treatment program. The charges were later dismissed.
His “second chance” at life is “why I believe in Jesus Christ,” he said. He wanted to get off drugs and be a better parent, he said.
At the time of his arrest, he had an eight-month-old daughter. He’s had two more children with his longtime partner.
But he didn’t stay clean right away, he admitted. He began using drugs again three years later, but was able to stop again, this time permanently, he said.
Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix council candidate opens up about drug-dealer past | Exclusive
