Defiant police chief defends handling of 'Gilbert Goons' - despite claims of a ... trends now

An Arizona police chief has defended his department's handling of teen violence amid claims that his inaction could have led to the killing of 16-year-old Preston Lord.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, embattled Gilbert Police department chief Michael Soelberg denied that his community has an issue with teen violence.

Gilbert, a wealthy Phoenix suburb once billed as the country's second-safest city,  has been in national news over teen delinquents who call themselves the 'Gilbert Goons' and have allegedly terrorized the community since as far back as 2022.

But Soelberg says the videos of teen attacks and claims made by alleged victims about their reign of terror were not shared with police until after the fatal beating of Lord 16, at a Halloween party in October in nearby Queen Creek.

Seven teens and young men, including several Goons suspects, have been charged with his murder, sparking accusations from some in the community who believe the alleged killers should have been removed from the streets long ago.

One father, Rick Kuehner, claims he had been trying to get Gilbert police and school officials to protect his son from the Goons since last summer, when his child was first threatened and then brutally beaten up at an In-N-Out parking lot which was a go-to spot for the teen delinquents.

In a lawsuit against Goon suspects, their parents and Arizona officials, Kuehner argues that authorities failed to protect his son, and then also failed to punish the Goons. 

He and other members of the community have told DailyMail.com they believe Soelberg is one of the officials who should resign over their alleged negligence. 

But chief Soelberg claims his department has properly investigated and appropriately closed the alleged killers' previous charges.

He told DailyMail.com: 'It was never documented that this was the term that they were doing before Preston was killed. That was all information that came up after Preston Lord was killed.

'We looked at all of our cases involving those seven subjects involved in that case, and we had properly investigated all cases that we had with them prior to Lord's murder. We had no pending cases.'

Soelberg added that once the community started sharing videos and information, his department was able to act. 

The chief added that his department currently has eight open teen violence cases, but they are not all related to the alleged Goons.

'All these videos that you've seen online that have been shared by the community...  that information was not provided to the police department or even shared publicly before. 

'And once we received that information, we actively investigated the cases, and since January of this year, we made 29 arrests on cases involving group violence.'

Soelberg also responded to claims by Kuehner, who previously told DailyMail.com he asked for a detective to look into his son's attackers but was not assigned one until after Lord was killed. 

The chief admitted that Kuehner was not informed when his son's case was made inactive - and was only contacted by police when it was reopened following Lord's death in October. 

Soelberg said: 'I'm confident we've properly investigated all of the cases that were reported by [Kuehner] and his son. The case was never closed, it was re-activated in October. 

'After Preston Lord was killed, we looked at all of our teen violence cases, not just his, and at that time, we reactivated the case, and that detective reached out to him. We

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