Around 6:45 p.m. on Oct. 2, a Phoenix police officer shot a man outside a Burger King who turned out to be unarmed. Body-worn camera footage released by the Phoenix Police Department on Thursday showed that an officer shot the man as he was trying to flee, back turned, into the occupied restaurant.
According to police, the man remains in the hospital and will be turned over to the Arizona Department of Public Safety when he is discharged. Though police have not publicly named the man, an incident report obtained by Phoenix New Times in response to a records request identifies the man as 38-year-old Lee Anthony Johnson. Phoenix police confirmed to New Times that is the man’s name.
Johnson was the second person shot by Phoenix police on Oct. 2. That morning, Phoenix officers shot and killed 58-year-old Victor Altamirano, who was suicidal and stumbling away from police at the time. Though Altamirano initially charged an officer with a knife, he was standing 40-50 feet away from officers at the time he was shot. Altamirano was the ninth person killed by Phoenix police this year; there has since been a 10th killing. There have been six fatal police shootings — and four non-fatal shootings — since Aug. 19…