From the Arizona Daily Star:
Monday’s shooting occurred about 12:45 p.m. when a person called 911 and said a man was driving a dune buggy in a dirt lot near North Oracle and West Grant roads and was firing in the direction of a Circle K store.
“Numerous people were in the line of fire,” Pacheco said. No bystanders were injured.
Police don’t know why Burdon started firing at people from the dirt lot, Pacheco said.
According to the news, the shooter “had pulled into his dune buggy into the dirt lot about 10:15 a.m. and about two hours later he began driving around the lot pointing his gun at people and shooting.” His motive has not yet been ascertained.
One officer arrived and positioned his patrol car east of the dirt lot on West Sahuaro and Burdon fired at him, Pacheco said. Meanwhile another officer, Luis Campos, who is part of the SWAT team approached Burdon moving south on North 11th Avenue from Grant Road.
When Burdon refused to obey commands to drop his firearm, Campos “observed the threat to citizens and the officer and fired at the suspect, striking and killing him,” according to a TPD news release.
Campos, an 8-year-veteran, used a rifle to kill the gunman.
Sounds like a clear-cut “good shoot” to me.
Being that this is Arizona, I’m surprised that there wasn’t any return fire from private citizens. Oh well.
Since inquiring minds will no doubt want to know, according to this page, TPD SWAT gets issued Steyr AUG A1s, but I have no idea how up-to-date that information is. Non-SWAT officers do not seem to be issued rifles. There are no details on the range from the bad guy to the store, or from the police officer to the bad guy.
Officer Campos deserves a hearty “attaboy” for his actions. Hopefully he doesn’t lose a wink of sleep over the incident, as he was entirely justified in his actions.
This brings the number of bad guys shot by TPD this year to 5.
UPDATE: The Arizona Daily Star has released new information:
Police don’t know what prompted Burdon to start firing his gun in the dirt lot, but Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman, said his family said he was insulin-dependent.
Investigators will not know if that was a factor until an autopsy’s toxicology reports are complete, and that can take six to eight weeks, Robinson said. “If those are inconclusive, we may never know,” Robinson said.
More information as I get it.
Update: The Tucson Citizen has yet more information.
There has been a moderate amount of controversy regarding this post. As such, comments for this post have been disabled.
Here’s my stand on the matter:
– I am not judging the shooter’s character, only his behavior. Several independent media sources and the police have said that the shooter fired several shots at innocent bystanders, the Circle K, and at least one police officer. In my opinion, these actions threaten innocent people and justify the use of force, including lethal force, by the police (and bystanders, if they were armed) to stop the threat. I don’t care if it was Mother Teresa or Gandhi doing the shooting…if they were shooting at innocent people, I would feel that the use of lethal force to stop the threat would be justified.
– Several people have contacted me to tell me the shooter may have been suffering from diabetic shock. To the best of my knowledge, the police have not yet released the results of their toxicology reports, and so it is not known if the shooter’s medical conditions may have caused his behavior.
– If I have made some sort of factual error, please contact me by email with some sort of verifiable source and I’ll be glad to update the post accordingly. For example, copies of the police car dashcams, security camera footage from the Circle K, a police report, a medical examiner’s report, etc. would all be such sources. Simply saying “no, you’re wrong” without any verifiable evidence doesn’t cut it.
– Again, I’m not judging the shooter’s character, only his actions. My use of the term “bad guy” should be taken to mean “a person committing an action which poses a threat to others” (e.g. shooting at innocent people).