Protests arise in Phoenix over fatal police shooting
Protesters in Phoenix are filled with outrage after police fatally shot a man in a parked car on Saturday.
Cops say that the man, Jay Garcia, was armed and pointed his gun at the officers.
CNN reports that Garcia’s sister took to Facebook to say that her brother was simply sleeping in the car and was unarmed at the time. It’s not clear if she was present at the shooting.
“On Tuesday, about 40 protesters took to the streets of Paradise Valley, an affluent neighborhood where [Arizona] Gov. Doug Ducey lives, according to NBC affiliate KPNX,” said parent network NBC News, to protest the shooting.
“’Ducey, what I want to tell you, I want you to do a better job policing your police,’ one protester said. Ducey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.”
Police say they were responding to a call placed by a man who said he’d been previously stabbed. The man who placed the call claimed that the stabber was nearby with another man, who also happened to have a gun.
The police Garcia, who was parked in a vehicle on a driveway. However, Garcia refused to leave the vehicle.
“Officers talked to the man for approximately 10 minutes, asking him to leave his car so they could secure the scene. He refused and eventually rolled up the windows and pulled out a gun,” police said in the statement.
Video of the scene shared on AZCentral show officers surrounding the vehicle screaming at the man to put down his gun. Even the witness recording the video, or someone standing near to him, yell for the man to put down the gun.
Someone can be heard yelling, “Put the gun down bro.”
Then a cop warns “…shoot you.”
The camera turns down to the street as shots are fired, presumably by police. When the video returns the officer standing closest to the man is in firing position and a circular hole is in the driver’s side window of the vehicle.
During the altercation, police were hectored by bystanders.
“The murder of Jay Garcia is another devastating example of the Phoenix Police Department’s inability to meet situations with any other tool but violence,” said Ben Laughlin, an organizer with the group Poder in Action.
Poder’s website says: “We build power to disrupt and dismantle systems of oppression and determine a liberated future as people of color in Arizona.”
Yes, and so do police.
PHOTO: Patrick Breen / The Republic via Imagn
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Just another case of the ignorant minority masses incited to wriot by communist like George Soros,.amd the disgusting black lives don’t matter group.
Why would ANYONE want to be a Law Enforcement Officer!
If you are dumb enough to point a gun at a police officer,
You deserve to get shot! You point one at me and I guarantee your gonna get shot!
Love it… she lies, and these no life complete idiots believe it! Please do waste your time protesting! This shooting sis going nowhere!
What’s the difference between saying colored person or person of color its weird how we play word games
To limit the power of the police to protect themself. eliminates their power to protect you too. Reminds me of the Einstein saying they called the police from CHAZ and they did not come while he was holding the defund the police sign!
Do the idiot protesters think the police should not shot first if a gun is drawn or pointed at them. …. It ain’t like a fist fight, letting the other guy throw the first punch. That first shot is deadly. .. Were I the officer in that situation I certainly would be the first to shoot.
Any other choice would be stupid and suicide.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Anybody that instigates a weapons encounter with a law enforcement officer is a menace to society. They have already thrown away the rule book on “civil” discourse.
You don’t respect the Police and pull out a firearm. What kind of result do you expect !!! The Officer had every right, PERIOD.
Any police action is now automatically blamed on the Police Force! Totally unjust! The goal is to disarm police and defund them. If that happens, there will be total anarchy in this country. Is that really the goal of the Marxist Left Remember, the Gestapo and the KGB – is that we’re facing?
As an ex-LEO, I understand that the police sometimes have to shoot first, it’s called self defense. As an old man, who is tired of this stuff, I would very much like the various police departments in the ‘afflicted’ cities just to pull back, and have an extended case of the ‘Blue Flu’, and the neighboring departments are too understaffed to assist. Sometimes the worst punishment you can inflict on the stupid is to give them what they want.
Thank God that no police officers or innocent people were hurt in this childish act of stupidity.
Garcia didn’t quite prove how tough he was. Unfortunately, the animals will devolve into a blue blood lust, believing they are justified by the prior idiocy. My advise to the Valley police, protect yourselves.
Maybe those “idjit” so called protesters need to go thru the same training that cops go thru. Then maybe they’ll understand. Nah, It’d never work. Takes too much time from their busy schedules of doing nothing much.