Last year, the Phoenix Police Department went long stretches without shooting and killing anyone, and wound up killing three fewer people in 2025 than it did the year prior. But 2026 is off to a deadly start for one of the most scrutinized local law enforcement agencies in the country.
The year began with a Phoenix cop shooting and killing the wrong person, resulting in the death of a father who had subdued a home intruder. In January, two Phoenix officers and several Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers shot and killed a man in his car who may have been unarmed. Since then, police shootings have become only more frequent.
Since Thursday, Phoenix police officers have shot and killed three people, whom the department has yet to identify publicly. That brings the department’s total to five killings in two and a half months, putting it almost halfway to its 2025 total of 11 police killings. A sixth person died during an interaction with police, though that was because he accidentally shot himself while a cop tackled him…