A new video shows more details of the events leading to the fatal April shooting of an armed man at Tohono Chul Park.
The police body-cam video from Oro Valley police officers and a narrative were released by the Pima Regional Critical Incident Team, the multi-law enforcement group tasked with investigating officer-involved shootings in the area.
The footage captures an intense scene as officers make their way through the dark 49-acre property west of North Oracle Road near West Ina Road while responding to a neighbor’s report about 7 p.m. of gunshots fired from inside the park, which was closed at the time.
When the first officer arrived, he parked his squad car outside the locked gate and entered the property on foot. The officer found a pickup truck with its windows shattered near the park’s Garden Bistro. As the officer approached the vehicle to investigate further, a gunshot is fired in his direction, and he takes cover, the video shows.
As officers raced to the area, a barrage of additional shots can be heard in the video as the officer runs to another area of the park looking for a safer location.
The video from officers’ body-worn cameras shows them confronting an armed man along a walkway, later identified as Alfred Lopez-Minor.
A video from the Pima Regional Critical Incident Team gives new details from a fatal police shooting in April of an armed man firing a gun at Tohono Chul Park. Alfred Lopez-Minor, 31, a former contract worker at the park seen in the video holding a gun, was killed. No officers were injured.
Lopez-Minor has a gun in one hand as he initially has his hands raised in the air as the officers move closer, yelling for him to drop the weapon.
Multiple shots are fired by the officers as soon as Lopez-Minor, still holding the gun, brings his hands down and moves them together to grab the handgun with both hands, the video shows.
Lopez-Minor, a 31-year-old former contract worker at Tohono Chul, falls to the ground as the video footage ends. He died at the scene. The video also shows a handgun found near his body.
Multiple items had been damaged or destroyed by Lopez-Minor prior to the confrontation with officers, authorities previously said.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is the primary agency investigating the shooting. The findings will be forwarded to the Pim County Attorney’s Office, which is standard procedure.
Oro Valley police are conducting a separate investigation to determine if department procedures were followed.
The Oro Valley police officers involved in the shooting have been identified as Manny Guerrero, a 24-year department veteran; Kristofer Brandstrom, a 6-year-veteran of the department; and Matthew Farmer, who has been with the department less than three years.
No officers were injured in the incident.
