In early March 2025, Scottsdale police Sgt. Zack Fielding shot and killed 42-year-old Joseph Santos as Santos sat in his car. Though Scottsdale police neglected to mention it in their press release about the shooting at the time, no weapon was found on Santos, who was alleged to have brandished a pistol after committing a hit-and-run earlier that evening.
Now, a year after his death, Santos’ widow is suing the city over the shooting. In a wrongful death lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in early March, Maria Santos blames the Scottsdale Police Department for her husband’s death. To employ deadly force, police officers must have “an objectively reasonable basis for fear for their own safety,” the lawsuit says, and because Santos was unarmed, that threat was not there.
Fielding is not named in the lawsuit because Scottsdale police had not identified him at the time it was filed, the lawsuit says. Phoenix New Times obtained the incident report about the shooting, which identified Fielding as the shooter. New Times has also requested the results of a Mesa police-led investigation into the shooting by the East Valley Critical Incident Response Team, but has not received them…