Phoenix police officers were involved in a shooting Sunday afternoon near North 18th Avenue and West Cheryl Drive in northern Phoenix, according to police. No officers were hurt, and investigators say there are no outstanding suspects connected to the incident.
The officers involved were assigned to the Phoenix Police Department's Cactus Park Precinct, which serves north-central Phoenix neighborhoods including the area around Cheryl Drive, as reported by ABC15 Arizona. The Phoenix Police Department is now investigating the shooting, and ABC15 says it will update its report as more information becomes available. As is standard in Arizona for incidents involving officer use of deadly force, the Arizona Department of Public Safety's Major Incident Division is handling the criminal investigation into the shooting itself.
Why an Outside Agency Leads the Criminal Review
The involvement of a state agency rather than Phoenix PD's own detectives traces back to Arizona Revised Statutes § 41-1762, a 2022 state law that required all Arizona law enforcement agencies, by July 1, 2025, to refer critical force incidents to an independent entity such as the DPS Major Incident Division or a regional task force. The unit was created specifically to eliminate conflicts of interest when officers use deadly force, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. Once that criminal inquiry concludes, its findings go to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, which determines whether officers' actions met state criminal law standards, while Phoenix PD separately conducts its own internal administrative review, per the City of Phoenix.
Under the city's transparency guidelines, Phoenix police are required to release a public Critical Incident Briefing video — containing 911 audio, radio recordings, and body-worn camera footage — within 14 days of any officer-involved shooting. That protocol means additional details about what led officers to open fire near Cheryl Drive, and the condition of the person shot, are expected to become public in the coming weeks, though neither has been disclosed yet.
A Pattern That Has Drawn Federal Scrutiny
Sunday's shooting adds to a year that has already seen a steady stream of officer-involved shootings across Phoenix. The city's open data dashboard recorded nine such incidents through late July, and Phoenix New Times reported that officers fatally shot 11 people in 2025 and five more during the first four months of 2026. City figures show that shootings remain statistically rare set against the roughly 846,000 calls for service Phoenix officers handle each year, occurring in about 0.003% of calls and 0.066% of adult arrests.
That frequency sits alongside continued federal oversight. A June 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Justice found reasonable cause to believe the City of Phoenix and its police department engage in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct, including excessive and unjustified deadly force, following a three-year civil rights investigation. Separately, a Cronkite News investigation published in September 2025 by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found that Phoenix Police's public shooting database excludes civilian deaths caused by non-shooting force and omits officer names, limiting what the public can independently verify.
Recent Cases Show the Financial Stakes
The scrutiny isn't just reputational. Hoodline previously reported that the family of a man killed in a January 2026 Phoenix police shooting filed a $25 million notice of claim against the city, a statutory step required under Arizona law before a lawsuit against a public entity can proceed. That case remains one of several recent disputed shootings that have drawn legal and public attention across the city.
For now, key questions about Sunday's shooting near Cheryl Drive remain unanswered: who the person shot was, what prompted officers to fire, and that person's medical condition. Those details are expected to emerge as the DPS Major Incident Division's criminal investigation and Phoenix PD's administrative review move forward.
