Recent Scottsdale Police Shooting Draws Investigation
Arizona authorities are looking into a recent shooting by an Arizona officer. This particular officer has been involved in 6 other shootings since 2002, with 5 of them being fatal, so his decision to shoot a man who was holding a baby gave them cause for concern.
Officer James Peters was one of six Scottsdale officers who were called to a Phoenix home on Tuesday, amid reports by neighbors that a man was threatening them with a handgun and holding a baby.
50 year old John Loxas was fatally shot, but the infant he had in his arms was completely unharmed.
Of the 6 previous shootings, Peters, who is a 12-year veteran of the Scottsdale police force, and who served on its SWAT team, was not alone in firing shots in 3 of them. Other officers were reported to have also fired their weapons.
Peters’ first shooting was in 2002 as a member of the SWAT force. He was one of three SWAT officers who, after a standoff, were involved in the shooting and wounding of a domestic violence suspect. Over the next 7 years, he was involved in 5 more shootings, all of which ended up being fatal.
Police Chief Alan Rodbell said that when the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office investigated the shootings, they found them all to be justifiable. One particular incident earned him his department’s medal of valor for shooting and killing a man who was had hijacked a donut truck driver and was holding a store employee hostage.
However, not everyone supports Peters’ actions. The lawyer who represented the family of a man killed by Peters and another officer in 2006, Jason Leonard, said that he has concerns that the city is supporting Peters even when his actions are questionable.
He goes on to say “my concern is that he seems to shoot first and ask questions later and has been supported in this policy. I don’t think he’s going after innocent citizens, however, if you find yourself in a precarious situation, he seems to err on the side of escalating the violence.”
The incident in 2006 happened when Kevin Hutchings got in a fight with a friend, and drove home to his house in Mesa. Officers had the friend keep Hutchings on the phone while they cut the power to flush him out, and when he came outside, he had a shotgun and fired at officers. When officers shot back, they inflicted fatal wounds and Hutchings died. Leonard said that officers never announced their presence, and as a result of the case, the family was awarded a $75,000 settlement from the city.
According to the Police department spokesman Sgt. Mark Clark, investigators began looking into Peters’ decision on Tuesday, and why police officers felt that Loxas presented a threat to them and/or the child he was holding.
Clark says “there were at least three officers that were in a position to engage the suspect. At least one of the officers thought he saw something in the suspect’s hand. So at this point in the investigation we want to make sure we have all of the officers’ statements down.”
If previous cases are any indication, the investigation will take a few weeks to complete, and then the findings are to be turned over to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
The police report said that after threatening his neighbors, Loxas went back into his house, and opened the door holding his 9-month-old grandson but refused to come out. Officers called for him to come outside, Loxas refused and bent over to reach inside the house, and Peters shot Loxas from 15 yards away with a rifle.
Clark says that Loxas died instantly, and when he fell with the baby in his arms, the baby was unharmed. Police say that Loxas had been reaching for a handgun that was down inside a chair just a few feet away, and that he had a shotgun near him as well.
Rodbell guaranteed that a complete investigation was currently underway. In regards to police shootings, he said “a police officer’s primary duty is to protect life. It is difficult for everyone when we are forced to take a life.”
A San Francisco lawyer that has represented officers involved in police shootings for the past 30 years, Mike Rains, says that Peters has a history of shootings, and deserves extra scrutiny for that reason. He goes on to note that either Peters is more prone to shoot first, or that he specifically takes calls that might end up requiring force.
Rains commented on this particular case by saying that Loxas’ actions throughout the standoff were cause for legitimate concern for the officers, and that Loxas might have tried to force police to shoot him in what is known as “suicide by cop.” Rains does finalize his statement by saying that it’s important to have a more critical eye on shootings by officers.
“We can only hope that they have sufficient training and sufficient good judgment and common sense and reasoning to make good decisions, because sometimes they don’t and when they don’t, people get injured and killed who don’t deserve it,” he said.
