TJ L’Heureux
Audio By Carbonatix
On Oct. 1, new Phoenix Police Chief Matt Giordano issued a press release addressing a run of police shootings. Phoenix cops had shot and killed four people in a span of 41 days. During that stretch police also shot two other people who survived their injuries.
That run of shootings happened to coincide with the beginning of Giordano’s tenure, which started in mid-August. In his Oct. 1 message, the chief acknowledged the shootings and their effect on residents. “We understand how deeply concerning this is to our community and we share your concern,” he wrote. While noting that “every situation is different,” Giordano went on to outline several reforms he’d be instituting to curtail police shootings. Those included enhanced training on de-escalation, the expanded use of less-lethal weapons, and collaboration with the city’s civilian-led Office of Accountability and Transparency.
One day after Giordano’s message, his officers further proved the urgency of their chief’s reforms. In two separate incidents on Oct. 2, Phoenix officers shot two people, killing one. In one instance, the department tacitly admitted that the victim, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was unarmed.
Police have now shot and killed five people in the past 45 days while shooting and injuring three others. In total, police have shot and killed 9 people this year while shooting and injuring an additional five. That puts them on pace for 12 fatal shootings in 2025, which would fall under last year’s total of 14 but match the total from 2023.
According to a Phoenix police database of use-of-force incidents, none of the shootings has been deemed out of department policy. Out of the 286 use-of-force incidents included in the database for 2025, only four have been deemed out-of-policy. None of those four correspond to incident reports from police shootings, and only one of those four out-of-policy incidents includes a badge number for the officer involved. The database lists no incidents from Feb. 20 to May 2 and has no incidents listed after May 3.
In the wake of the first shooting, Giordano traveled to the scene to give a statement to the media that was later posted on the department’s Instagram account. (Giordano’s predecessor, interim Chief Michael Sullivan, rarely made such appearances.)
“I understand it’s concerning when incidents happen in such frequency in the short time that I’ve been in this position as the police chief,” Giordano said. “No two incidents are the same. Officers are in stressful situations all the time and they have to make split-second decisions. But the stress this brings and the impact this has on both the employees involved as well as the members of the community involved is not lost on me. The impact is great.”
The shootings
The first shooting occurred around 8 a.m. near 5600 South 6th Street. (That address belongs to a church, though a police advisory said that police responded to a home.) According to a police advisory, police received a call about a man — later identified as 58-year-old Victor Altamirano —”making suicidal statements while being in possession of a knife.” On the 911 call, police were told that “the man also indicated that he would confront officers if they came to the home.”
Officers came to the home and, as he’d apparently warned, the man confronted them. Police said officers initially made contact with people inside the home, during which Altamirano exited the home and “immediately ran at an officer in the street.” Police added that “while running, the man was verbally challenging the officer with a knife in hand and raised above his head,” leading two officers to fire their duty weapons. The advisory also said officers fired a less-lethal pepper ball launcher and a stun baton launcher, but “neither gained full compliance from the man.”
It is not clear in the media advisory if the less-lethal weapons were fired before or after police shot Altamirano with their firearms. Police sometimes use less-lethal weapons to ensure a suspect is not moving after having used lethal force. On Friday morning, police announced that Altamirano had died at the hospital.
The second Oct. 2 police shooting of the day took place at a fast food restaurant near 1600 East Buckeye Road. (Though the advisory doesn’t specify the restaurant, there are a Burger King and a Subway near that location.) Around 6:44 p.m., police responded to a call about an attempted armed robbery that “indicated a man was stealing from a woman and appeared to have a firearm.” When police arrived, they spotted a man who fit the description provided on the call.
Per police, officers told the man to lie on his stomach on the ground, and he complied. However, the man then “abruptly got to his feet,” and an officer shot him. The man, whom police have not identified, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The police advisory notes that “no gun was found during the initial investigation,” suggesting that police shot an unarmed man. The advisory also does not make it clear if the man who was shot was indeed involved in the alleged armed robbery attempt. Phoenix police spokespeople did not answer questions from Phoenix New Times about the incident, including whether there was any indication the man posed a danger to officers and why officers did not use less-lethal tactics to subdue him.
In response to questions about both incidents, a police spokesperson responded only that the Major Incidents Division of the Arizona Department of Public Safety would be investigating. New Times submitted questions to DPS about the shootings; Phoenix police spokesperson Sgt. Brian Bower said DPS would not be answering questions. Police have not released the names of the officers involved, though those are typically shared within two weeks. “Critical incident briefing” videos on the two shootings are expected by Oct. 16.
Giordano reiterated his commitment to expanding crisis intervention training and the use of less-lethal weapons, as well as tactics like “distance and cover” in order “to hopefully resolve situations like this in a peaceful, safe manner to make sure people get the help they need.” He promised that the investigation by DPS and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office would be “thorough” and “complete.”
“We always look for ways to improve,” he said. “We always look for additional training opportunities, different tactics — whatever we can do to make our employees safe and our communities safe.”
