A man was shot and killed by an Arizona DPS trooper during a barricade situation on Loop 101 in Tempe in the early hours of Sunday morning. According to AZFamily, the incident unfolded around 2 a.m. when the trooper approached a vehicle parked on the highway's shoulder, which had been reported for erratic driving.

Despite the attempts of the trooper to engage, the driver "refused to follow commands and barricaded himself inside the vehicle," as reported by FOX 10 Phoenix. About 30 minutes into the standoff, the situation escalated when the man reportedly brandished a handgun, leading the trooper to fatally shoot him. The identity of the man has not been released, and no troopers were injured during the incident.

The shooting resulted in an extended closure of the southbound lanes of Loop 101, creating substantial traffic delays well into the afternoon. The freeway, already strained by a nearby construction closure, did not reopen until after 1 p.m., reported AZFamily. AZDPS' Major Incident Division is conducting an investigation into the shooting, which has been marked as the 34th involving law enforcement in Arizona this year.

In a statement to AZFamily, former Arizona police chief Stan Kephart reflected on the perilous nature of the unfolding events, "This is a chaotic set of circumstances and every officer’s worst nightmare, to come upon this kind of a circumstance that escalates to a point where an officer believes that he is about to either be killed or grievously injured." Kephart described the confrontation as an escalation-of-force circumstance and emphasized that the trooper "can only respond to the failure of that person to comply with his lawful commands and that was clearly in evidence here." Still, Kephart refrained from declaring the shooting justified or unjustified due to the lack of complete details and the ongoing investigation.