Remembering Manny Quiñonez, longtime Phoenix police officer and security guard

If you visited City Hall from 2008 to 2019, you almost certainly saw him: A towering, soft-spoken man cramped behind a tiny security desk on the 11th floor outside City Council offices. He may have even tried to tell you a story from his 30-year career in law enforcement. He shared many while I was the City Hall reporter for The Arizona Republic.

• Like when he went undercover in 1960 to sell marijuana to a man named Ernesto Miranda. Four years later, Miranda was caught in a legal battle that eventually established the federal requirement to inform suspects of their right to remain silent — or Miranda rights.
• And the time he patrolled peaceful demonstrations against segregation in south Phoenix — while battling discrimination as one of the first Latino officers at the department.
• He also spoke of his brush with death when he was shot on duty in 1966, and his years of suffering from PTSD in an era when the condition was not well understood and rarely discussed.

Eventually, I started writing down his stories, and corroborating them with historical records. He witnessed Phoenix's coming-of-age in real time. And if you ask me, he made our city better each step of the way.

• "I'm very proud of the fact that I got to see the world that my city evolved into. My city of Phoenix," he told me in 2019.

Of note: Manny is survived by his wife, Mary, and three children, Manuel, Louis and Lisa.

• In our many chats, Manny never missed an opportunity to brag about his kids, all of whom pursued public safety careers.
• And he always remembered Mary was more than he deserved.