Video: Mesa police release footage showing events before fatal shooting
Feb 18, 2022, 11:00 AM | Updated: 11:24 am
PHOENIX – The Mesa Police Department released surveillance camera video Thursday evening showing what happened before an officer fatally shot an armed man that morning.
Police said an officer was monitoring the department’s overt camera system around 2:45 a.m. and saw what appeared to be a verbal altercation between two men at a bus stop outside a gas station at Alma School and Main Street. One of the men had a gun in his hand.
The minute-long clip, which was posted on social media, shows the armed man running into the intersection and firing the handgun several times. Police said it wasn’t clear who or what he was shooting at.
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The footage then shows the man heading back toward the bus stop, which is on the eastbound side of Main Street. The video stops just after a police cruiser can be seen traveling west on Main Street.
Police have identified the armed suspect as Ringo Van Winkle.
Officers first deployed a “less-lethal” bean bag round while trying to take him into custody, police said in a press release. Van Winkle still wouldn’t comply with commands, police said, and then one officer deployed a Taser and another shot the suspect with his firearm.
Van Winkle died around 5:10 a.m. after being taken to a hospital, police said.
The case remains under active investigation. Anybody who witnessed it was asked to call Mesa Police at 480-644-2211 or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS (948-6377).
