Phoenix police release body camera footage of June west Phoenix shootout
By: The Phoenix Police Department released edited body camera footage Thursday of a police shootout that happened on June 30.
The video intersperses narration from department spokesman Sgt. Vincent Cole with portions of body camera footage. Cole explained that officers were responding to a call of a suspicious person in a Maryvale neighborhood, near 106th Drive and West Colter Street, when they encountered an armed man.
In the original 911 call, a woman says there’s a strange person in her neighborhood who appears to be “out of sorts,” walking around.
Video shows officers speaking with a man who was part of the call to police when a gunshot is heard in the distance. An officer immediately raises his gun and points it down the dark street, yelling “Show me your hands now! Show me your hands I’m gonna shoot you! I will shoot you — show me your hands!” Multiple shots are fired off in quick succession by the officer.
The man, later identified as Kristopher Johnson, 40, is difficult to see, and it’s unclear if he fired a gun.
Cole said officers warned the man to drop his weapon and when he didn’t comply, officers shot at him. A previous police statement said that officers opened fire after the man shot at them when they asked him to drop his gun.
After shooting, the officer calls the incident into dispatch and begins running down the street after Johnson. He describes Johnson’s outfit and says “he’s aiming a gun at us, he shot multiple times.”
At least two more officers can be seen also following Johnson down the street, approaching around a building instead of walking directly down the street. At one point, the officer who shot at Johnson takes cover behind a nearby car in what appears to be a response to distant gunfire. He tells dispatch over his radio that Johnson is still shooting and running northbound.
Since 2019, the Phoenix Police Department has produced videos with summaries of police shootings that include some body-camera footage, 911 calls and a narration of the events that led to the shooting.
Body camera footage from another angle and a different officer show the officer involved in the shooting immediately drawing his weapon when the first gunshot from Johnson is heard, and that officer walking down the street.
Later in the video, Cole said that the department received an emergency call from a nearby home while officers were following Johnson. In the 911 call, a woman can be heard saying there are shots being fired outside her home and that her husband is outside. She can be heard asking someone, presumably her husband returning, “Did you shoot?” The answer is unclear, but she tells the operator that her husband has been shot in the right leg.
Officers who responded to the woman’s call asked the man to step outside and took him into custody. He was later taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries when he was found to have a gunshot wound, Cole said. A search of the house found a handgun.
The officers involved have approximately three years of experience, Cole said, and are assigned to the Maryvale-Estrella Mountain Precinct. There is both an internal and a criminal investigation underway and the incident will be reviewed by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
"Conclusions about whether the actions of the officer are consistent with department policy and the law will not be made until all facts are known and the investigation is complete,” Cole said.