A 25-year-old man has been arrested and booked into the Maricopa County Jail after Mesa police said he pulled a knife on an officer, sparking a shooting.
The incident began about 8 a.m. Feb. 16 in Tempe, police said, when the suspect, Pedro Garcia, was walking near 13 th Street and Hardy Drive and stole a landscaping vehicle.
The vehicle was equipped with GPS tracking that allowed Mesa police to find it a short time later parked in the 1500 block of East Mahoney, according to a Mesa Police Department report
Officers saw the suspect removing items from the vehicle and gave him instructions to surrender, the report stated.
Garcia was standing about 25 feet away from one of the officers “when he quickly removed a knife from a sheath in his waistband and lunged at the officer while pointing the knife tip at the officer,” authorities said in the report.
Two officers fired three rounds at the suspect, who was not hit.
He was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.