A physical fight between two men who knew each other turned deadly Saturday night at a QuikTrip gas station in Avondale, leaving one man dead and another hospitalized after gunfire broke out near the pumps.
The shooting happened in the gas pump area of the QuikTrip near Van Buren Street and Avondale Boulevard, according to 12News, which reported that the confrontation began as a fistfight before escalating into gunfire. The station also reported on the fatal outcome, as detailed by AZ Family, which confirmed one man was killed and another person was hospitalized following the incident.
What set the two men against each other remains unclear, but the fact that they knew one another separates this shooting from a random act of violence, the station’s report notes. Investigators have not released the identities of either the man who died or the person hospitalized, and no arrests have been publicly announced.
A Pattern of Violence at Valley Gas Stations
This is not the first deadly or violent altercation at a Phoenix-area convenience store this month. Just days earlier, on August 18, a man was fatally shot in an incident involving a security guard outside a Phoenix gas station near 27th Drive and West Peoria Avenue, per the same 12News account. That shooting came on the heels of other gas-station violence across the Valley this year…