Megan Cassidy, and Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

The Republic | azcentral.com

What appears to be a prank delivered on police radio traffic Wednesday evening led a rush of police activity to west Phoenix on the belief that a fellow officer was down.

Just before 7 p.m., a female voice was heard on a mutual-aid channel yelling “officer down 51st Avenue and Camelback." It was unclear, however, whether the woman was a dispatcher, repeating what she had heard. The woman did not mention codes for an officer needing help or for an officer-involved shooting.

More than a dozen squad cars and a hovering police helicopter had gathered near the area by 7:30 p.m., though it appeared no officers or citizens were in distress.

Some officers were using flashlights to look along the road and in bushes. Others congregated into groups and made small talk.

Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Trent Crump said the incident appeared to be a hoax. One way to prank the department could be through a lost or stolen radio, he said.

“Still checking things out, but everyone is fine so far,” he said.

Dispatchers, who at first told all available officers to respond to the distress report, later instructed officers to check in with their supervisors for a roll call.

Carlos Torres, 25, a clerk at an am/pm mini-mart, said police asked if they could see the store's surveillance footage Wednesday night. Torres said he was told that a police radio had been stolen or was left by an officer in the area. That radio was then used to make the officer-down call.

Torres said police told him that "two detectives" were being interviewed about the missing radio.

Officers had swarmed the convenience store early Wednesday morning for a shooting investigation. A man found lying by the pumps with a gunshot wound at about 4:20 a.m. was taken to a hospital, where he later died, according to police.

Joseph Petty, a 28-year-old taxi driver, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Michael Lopez, 25. Police said Petty told officers he was putting gas in his taxi at the end of his shift when he had a verbal exchange with Lopez.

Republic reporter Mark Harris contributed to this article.