D.S. Woodfill

12 News

The number of officer-involved shootings in Maricopa County has dropped about 30 percent through the first four months of the year, despite a spike some have perceived in the violent confrontations.

There were 26 officer-involved shootings in which police, suspects or both fired weapons during the first four months of 2013. There were only 18 from January through April this year.

The trend is in contrast to widely held beliefs that shootings have been on the rise. The subject triggered a public-safety committee hearing at the state Capitol last month and comes as the Phoenix Police Department begins a voluntary review of officer-involved shootings.

There were seven shootings in March involving Phoenix police, the highest number for Phoenix in a single month since April 2013. Additionally, the department had 31 officer-involved shootings in 2013, nearly double the number of shootings in 2012.

However, when comparing the first four-months of 2014 to the same period of 2013, shootings in Phoenix fell from 16 to at least nine.

Related:Phoenix police will analyze years of officer-involved shootings

The trend illustrates the typical ebb and flow of such phenomenon from month to month and quarter to quarter, officials say.

"We go from 2002 when we had 29 (shootings) to years when we literally were down to about a dozen," said Phoenix Police spokesman Trent Crump. "It's just like crime. We see a fluctuation."

But the last six years have shown the trend in police-involved shootings was relatively flat in Phoenix until 2013, according to officials There were 26 in 2008, 14 in 2009; 18 in 2010, 20 in 2011, 18 in 2012 and 31 last year.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety had the second biggest decrease year-to-date.

In the first four months of 2013, DPS officers were involved in four shootings. So far this year, they've had only one such incident. It occurred at 4163 S. Hardy Drive Tempe, followed a police pursuit on the U.S. 60 by Phoenix police and DPS. Officers deployed road spikes to stop the vehicle in Tempe. The suspect then stopped the vehicle, got out and fire at police. Officers shot back and struck the man, killing hm.

"Looking at one period of time is a completely inaccurate way to analyze officer-involved shootings," said DPS spokesman Carrick Cook.

Cook said a more accurate way to assess police-involved shootings is by comparing the number of traffic stops and other encounters a department has in a given year to the number of shootings.

"I make roughly 1,000 stops a year," he said. "I've never shot anybody."

Rep. Justin Pierce, R-Mesa, said he was concerned about the number of shootings in Phoenix in particular, and has said the city was on track to surpass 2013's officer-involved shootings.

Pierce, who is chairman of the House Committee on Public Safety, Military and Regulatory Affairs, said he's heard from many families with officers, and the number of shootings in March alone has left them unnerved.

That's why he convened a hearing last month on the matter.

"This was not a hearing that I held to show boat," he said. "It was simply, 'Folks, we've seen some increased shootings. We have a duty to our officers to provide as safe an environment for them as possible and for our communities, and I think we ought to look at this.'"

"I don't have an agenda or an end in mind that I think we need to support somehow," he added. "I just want to find out what's going on and see if there's something that can be done about it."

Pierce said he was moved to study the issue after the spike in shootings in March.

One of those shootings played out in a very dramatic and public setting. On March 18, police shot and killed 26-year-old Craig Uran outside the CityScape development in downtown Phoenix. Uran had led police on a 12-mile pursuit through the Valley when he tried eluding the police by driving into the CityScape's parking garage.

He carjacked a woman's vehicle and when he exited the garage police fired on him he drove down the sidewalk toward pedestrians, police said.

"That's kind of what put me over the top," Pierce said of the incident. "I just thought, 'Oh gosh, another one?' I think that the public expects us ... to be responsive to these sorts of things, and so I wanted to be responsive and I believe we've gathered some preliminary information that can get us to something that can improve the situation."

Pierce said he will call for an ad hoc committee in the next legislative session to be headed by that Rep. Darin Mitchell, R-Mesa, to study the phenomenon and propose ways the state can intervene to help lower the number of shootings.

Levi Bolton, executive director of the Arizona Police Association, which represents nearly 13,000 public-safety officers statewide, said that despite the year-to-date decrease in Maricopa County, he believes the state will see an increase in officer-involved shootings by year's end.

Bolton blamed increasingly desperate and emboldened offenders as well as shrinking police departments across the state.

"Staffing is a real problem," he said.

Bolton said smaller departments mean that officers have less back-up during violent confrontations. Those officers can feel forced to use firearms instead of attempting to use less-lethal measures.

Bolton explained that when officers arrive on scene in teams of two, one officer can train his firearm on the suspect while the other tries to deescalate or subdue the suspect with a Taser. If necessary, both officers can wrestle the suspect into submission.

Those options dwindle when just one officer is arriving on scene and facing one or more potentially armed suspects, Bolton said.

That's happening more and more in municipalities around the state, he said.