This is a quiet residential neighborhood where things like this do not typically occur.”

Rick Hernandez | Surprise Police spokesperson

By Jason Stone
Mail | X: @thestonecave

The Goodyear Police Department will lead the investigation into Thursday morning’s officer-involved shooting in Surprise.

A Surprise police officer shot a man allegedly armed with a knife in the middle of a neighborhood street near 151st Avenue and West Cactus Road.

Police spokesperson Rick Hernandez said officers were called to the neighborhood at 6:30 a.m. after getting a 911 call about a man with a knife.

In a media briefing about three hours after the incident, Hernandez said the man was shot after he refused the police request to drop the knife.

Hernandez said no officers were hurt and public safety was no longer at risk.

“This is a quiet residential neighborhood where things like this do not typically occur,” Hernandez said during the news briefing.

Hernandez later updated the condition of the man who was shot as critical, but stable. The man was not identified.

The investigation where police shot the man along Desert Hills Drive kept a long stretch of the road closed to police for several hours Thursday.

Authorities have not yet said if the man lived in the neighborhood or threatened anyone that prompted somebody to call 911.

Goodyear Police will lead the independent criminal investigation as part of the West Valley Incident Response Team. It is standard procedure to have a neighboring jurisdiction lead investigations of other departments after an officer-involved shooting. Hernandez said Goodyear will also handle future updates in the case.

The incident was the fourth officer-involved shooting in Surprise in nearly three years.

Officers shot two suspects in a pair of incidents in the parking lot of Walmart near Grand Avenue and Bell Road.

The first, on March 28, 2023, came when a man named Joseph Martin was shot and killed when he reached for a gun while police questioned him in his parked car.

The other was nearly a year later on Feb. 6, 2024, when an officer shot at a suspect’s vehicle as he hit a detective with his car as he tried to flee.

About a month after that incident, an officer shot a man to death in his home when he reached for a shotgun during a domestic violence call near Waddell and Dysart roads on March 10, 2024.

In none of the incidents were any officers injured from any gunfire.

Jason Stone can be reached at jstone@iniusa.org. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.

Jason Stone
Senior News Editor | Surprise

jstone@iniusa.com

Meet Jason
Jason Stone joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2019, after a distinguished three decade media career that included stops at the Arizona Republic, iHeart Media/Clear Channel and Beckett Sports Card magazine. He remembers when airports sold newspapers.

Community: He is a big supporter of the Valley's original sports team: The Phoenix Suns.

Education: Northern Arizona University with a BS in broadcast journalism and a minor in sports coaching.

Random Fact: The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln.

Hobbies: Surfing, backgammon and men who aren't afraid to cry.