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.