I wanted to take a moment to discuss our two most recent officer involved shooting incidents that happened within a week of each other this past month. During each of the incidents, our officers displayed selfless acts of courage while risking their own lives in the face of incredible dangers. Both of these incidents shed light on the reality of these deadly risks our officers face during any one of their given duty days. In each of these incidents, they all encountered violent felons motivated to inflict serious injury or death upon them or innocent citizens of our community. The first incident was on the evening of April 11th. Officers were preparing to serve a warrant on a violent felon for a weapon and narcotics related offense. Just prior to this warrant being served, the suspect was seen leaving his residence. When he realized officers were in the area and watching, he began to run on foot. Several of our officers gave chase to this person without hesitation knowing he very well could be armed with a gun. In fact, he was armed with a gun. During the chase, the suspect turned to fire at least one round at the officers who were chasing him. He attempted to fire at least one other shot at them, but by the grace of God a malfunction with his weapon prevented this from occurring. The officers returned fire striking this suspect, thus preventing him from firing more shots at them. The officers’ bravery did not end after the last shot did. After wounding this suspect, who only seconds before had tried to kill them, the officers understood that they had neutralized the threat and then immediately switched into lifesaving mode and approached him to render first aid. Their selfless act and ability to quickly de-escalate the situation allowed them to switch from using deadly force, over to a life-saving mode and ultimately saved this man’s life. That is the true act of a professional peace officer. The second incident occurred last week on April 17th. An armed and dangerous felon wanted in California for assault on a peace officer and escape, walked into the Wells Fargo Bank at East 22nd Street and South 5th Avenue. Once in the bank, he demanded cash from the bank tellers and eventually produced a handgun. A 9-1-1 call was made and officers from the Downtown Division quickly responded. In doing so, they prevented the suspect’s ability to escape. The armed suspect exited the bank only to see that several officers were there. This suspect refused multiple commands to drop his weapon. Ignoring the officers, he retrieved two more boxes of ammunition from his vehicle in the parking lot and started to walk back into the bank. This forced the officers to make a split second life or death decision knowing that potential victims were still inside that bank. They made the decision to prevent more violence against these victims and fired at this well-armed suspect. This stopped him from re-entering the bank and escalating the situation into, at a minimum, an intense hostage situation. It could be argued the officers’ actions prevented a mass murder situation as well. The investigation later revealed that 17 employees and customers were still inside that bank. My opinion is that several of them may very well have been saved by the split second decisions made by officers who fired on and stopped this from becoming an even larger tragedy. These incidents are a true testament to the quality and caliber of officers sworn to protect and serve the Tucson community. Under intense pressures during deadly force encounters, they reacted as they were all trained. They did so without hesitation. When most people might flee in the face of such dangers, these officers rushed in to confront and stop it. For this, I want to extend my deepest gratitude and thanks to all the officers involved in both these shootings. The Tucson Police Department and the Tucson community have much to be proud of in the life saving actions demonstrated by officers during both of these incidents. Roberto A. Villaseñor Chief of Police
Posted on: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 00:14:57 +0000
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