Phoenix Police Department
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On Jan. 17, a Phoenix police officer shot and killed 45-year-old Christopher Phillips in the back as he was running away, firing a single rifle shot like a hunter in a deer stand. Now the family of Phillips, who was the second person killed by Phoenix cops in 2025, is suing the city and the officer who pulled the trigger, William Rodriguez Gallardo.
Last week, Phillips’ mother, Maria Munoz, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court on behalf of herself, her husband and Phillips’ three children, whom she said are 13, 8 and 7 years old.
“They shouldn’t have shot my son,” Munoz said in a press release. “Chris was running away and what hurt me so much was how he was left on the ground bleeding, and nobody tried to help him. It’s a pain only a mother can feel.”
Phoenix spokesperson Dan Wilson declined to comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation. The Phoenix Police Department referred a request for comment on all questions about the killing to the city.
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Phillips was the first person shot and killed by a Phoenix police firearm this year, though a week before his death, officers killed a man by striking him in the chest multiple times with a powerful “less-lethal” foam projectile, which caused internal bleeding and fatal damage to the man’s heart. According to Cronkite News, the department’s policy for less-lethal launchers is that officers are only supposed to aim for the head, chest, neck and spine “if deadly force is justified.”
Footage of Phillips’ killing was released earlier this year by the Phoenix Police Department as part of a “critical incident briefing,” which is highly edited and narrated by an officer. According to that briefing, police had chased Phillips after receiving a report about people trespassing at an abandoned house, though the lawsuit brought by Phillips’ mother claims that Phillips was living there. When officers arrived, police said that several people fled from the property. Cops chased Phillips on foot before returning to their vehicle to pursue him.
Gallardo fired the fatal shot as Phillips ran into a neighborhood. In footage from his body-worn camera released by police, Gallardo said that Phillips is wearing a red jacket and “has a gun in his hand,” though the footage does not clearly show a gun. In a second clip from his body camera, Gallardo said, “Oh, he pointed at me, bro,” though only a car door blocks the view of Gallardo’s chest-mounted body camera.
Gallardo then raised the rifle at Phillips, who was roughly 40-50 yards away, and calmly fired a single thundering shot. Phillips instantly crumpled to the ground.
Courtesy of Richard Lyons
Does the gun matter?
As officers rode toward Phillips’ body, Gallardo again said, “He pointed the gun right at me, bro.” Another officer yelled at Phillips not to reach for the gun and stay on the ground, but the footage released by police ended there. While police said they recovered a gun, no image of the gun is included in the briefing, as is often the case when weapons are recovered.
The lawsuit over Phillips’ killing does not mention that Phillips allegedly had a gun, much less that he allegedly pointed it at police. But Richard Lyons, an attorney representing Phillips’ family in the suit, said that it’s irrelevant to the case.
“It doesn’t matter if (Phillips) pointed a gun at them,” Lyons told Phoenix New Times in a phone interview. “(Gallardo) said, ‘He pointed at me, bro,’ and waited seven seconds before firing.”
Lyons referenced a 2024 ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Calonge v. City of San Jose, which said that there has to be an immediate threat to officers or others to justify lethal force. The lawsuit says that “Christopher posed no threat to officers” or anyone else “when he was shot and killed from behind.”
“He may have had a gun on him, but that does not allow an officer to use deadly force,” Lyons said.
A Maricopa County medical examiner’s report issued on March 2 said that Phillips was killed by a single rifle shot from Gallardo, which entered his lower back and hit his pelvis. He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after arrival.
The lawsuit alleges that Gallardo’s decision to shoot at Phillips as he fled officers in broad daylight violated the Fourth and 14th Amendments. Munoz and the family are asking the court to require the city and Gallardo to pay punitive damages, attorney’s fees and court costs and general damages related to Munoz’s “emotional pain, distress, hardship, suffering, shock, worry, anxiety, sleeplessness and suffering for the loss of her son.”
It’s unclear whether Gallardo’s use of force was within department policy — the incident is not listed in Phoenix police’s public use-of-force database. Sgt. Phil Krynsky, a police spokesperson, declined to respond to an inquiry about the omission from the database and whether the department cleared Gallardo in the shooting. Neither is it clear whether the department still employs Gallardo.
TJ L’Heureux
A spate of shootings
Gallardo killed Phillips days before President Donald Trump took office and seven months after the U.S. Department of Justice released a damning report that documented how Phoenix cops have a pattern and practice of discriminatory policing and using excessive and unjustified deadly force. Months after the killing, however, Trump administration officials rescinded the DOJ report, ending any possibility of independent oversight of Phoenix police.
Police killings have continued anyway. Phillips was one of four people killed by Phoenix police through mid-August, but there have been six more since. In 2024, Phoenix police officers shot and killed 14 people, surpassing the death toll of 12 in 2023 — a mark the department is now on track to hit — and 10 in 2022.
The recent run of shootings coincides almost exactly with the hiring of new Police Chief Matthew Giordano. Phoenix police shot and killed six people in a 54-day span between Aug. 19 and Oct. 11. About midway through the streak — when Phoenix officers had killed four people in 41 days — Giordano issued a press release announcing new policies and initiatives to promote de-escalation tactics and training for dealing with people in behavioral crises.
“We understand how deeply concerning this is to our community and we share your concern,” Giordano said in the statement. “We remain committed to continuous improvement. Policing demands courage, split-second decision making, and compassion in the toughest moments.”
On Oct. 2, the day after Giordano’s press release, Phoenix officers shot two more people — including an unarmed man — and killed one of them. The man who died was holding a knife but appeared to be 40-50 feet away from officers and was yelling at them to kill him. On Oct. 11, Phoenix police shot two more people, killing one of them.
So far, none of the department’s 10 fatal shootings this year have been deemed out of police policy, nor have any resulted in charges by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
