Maricopa isn’t the second-safest AZ city. It’s not even in the top 25

City Hall raved in February about its recent rank as Arizona’s second-safest city. But the city forgot to check its source, which turns out to be totally bogus. 

There are at least 28 safer places than Maricopa in Arizona, according to the same source used in that ranking — places like Queen Creek, Florence, Buckeye and even Tucson. 

The ranking came from Moving Waldo, a little-known moving broker that is not based in the U.S. and has no online reviews. 

The report said Maricopa was the safest city in Arizona after Gilbert, leading many residents to scratch their heads. InMaricopa in the last three months reported a murder, animals burned alive, a handful of shootings, kidnappings, drug dealers, hostage situations, murder threats and plenty more. Gilbert, meanwhile, has grappled with the Gilbert Goons street gang, tied to a murder and other violent crimes. 

Search for Moving Waldo on google and the first result is a post on the social networking site Reddit, under the r/Scams subreddit. In a news release, the city said Moving Waldo was “a leading resource for relocation information.” 

Moving Waldo asserted per capita crime was higher in places like Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley than in Maricopa. There’s “not a chance” crime in those cities is higher than in Maricopa, Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Sloup told InMaricopa in a recent interview.

“Maricopa is busy,” he said. “There’s legit crime in the city of Maricopa.” 

Moving Waldo cites the Arizona Department of Public Safety as a source — and its own source plainly states the crime rate in Maricopa is 30% higher than in Paradise Valley, which isn’t even on Moving Waldo’s list of the five safest cities. 

The same DPS report says these municipalities are safer than Maricopa, based on the same 2023 per capita crime metric Moving Waldo used: Queen Creek, Florence, Tucson, Buckeye, Bisbee, Paradise Valley, Oro Valley, Tolleson, Miami, Benson, Wickenburg, Snowflake, Kearny, Huachuca City, Holbrook, Hayden, Douglas, Clifton, Clarkdale, Chino Valley, Wellton, Thatcher, South Tucson, Somerton, Safford, Round Valley and Pima. 

Yes, some of those are towns, not cities — but despite Moving Waldo calling its list “safest cities” in Arizona, its own list includes Florence, which is a town. 

And the DPS data doesn’t even include places like Fountain Hills that don’t have their own police departments, making the list of cities safer than Maricopa even longer. 

The Moving Waldo report says Florence has a crime rate of 90 per 1,000 people. That’s just a math fail — its own source states it’s just 9 per 1,000 people. Twice as safe as Maricopa, with a crime rate of 20 per 1,000. Whoops. 

The report also says San Luis has a crime rate double Maricopa. But its crime rate is only half of Maricopa’s, according to the same DPS data. 

MPD Chief Mark Goodman and a spokesperson for MPD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.