AZ Memo: Police encounters turn fatal, 2 scorpion species discovered in Arizona, weather outlook, more
Good morning, Arizona. Here's what you need to know today.
Highs in metro Phoenix are expected to reach 108 to 112 degrees with overnight lows of 82 to 90. The National Weather Service says there's a 10 percent chance for rain.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has also issued an ozone warning for the third day in a row.
The elderly, the very young and those with respiratory problems should stay indoors as much as possible during the alert period, and residents should reduce their time driving vehicles or running other machines that give off air pollutants.
Friday will be mostly sunny and hot with a slight chance for afternoon showers and thunderstorms. The forecast high is 107 to 111 and the low will be 81 to 87 degrees.
Forecasters anticipate Saturday won't be as hot, with highs between 101 and 105 and partly cloudy skies. There's a 30 percent chance for showers in the evening and after midnight, with overnight lows in the upper 70s to mid-80s.
Sunday will be similar: cloudy skies and a 30 percent chance of rain, but a degree or so cooler than Saturday.
3 police encounters, 3 suspects dead
In the space of a few hours Wednesday, three people died in separate encounters with Valley police officers. The cases — in Tempe, Phoenix and Scottsdale — were unrelated but seemed to fit squarely in the national discussion about police shootings and the dangers of police work. The incidents are as follows:
- In Tempe, an officer fatally wounded a man suspected of robbing a pharmacy. After a foot chase and a scuffle, the officer had fired a single shot from his gun, hitting the man. The man then hid inside an assisted-living center, where he bled out and died, police said. The officer suffered minor injuries.
- In Scottsdale, police shot and killed a man who they say lunged at an officer with a knife. Officers had been summoned to a shopping center by witnesses who reported the man acting erratically. No officers were harmed.
- In Phoenix, a murder suspect who fled to an apartment apparently committed suicide after an hours-long standoff with police and the FBI. Police identified the suspect found dead late Wednesday as 26-year-old Jason Earl Armstrong and say he was sought in a homicide at Fort Bragg, an Army base in North Carolina.
Winslow releases body-cam vid of fatal police shooting
Body-camera footage released by the city of Winslow on Wednesday shows the seconds leading up to the fatal shooting of a 27-year-old Navajo woman by a Winslow police officer, with the woman advancing toward the officer with a pair of silver scissors in her left hand.
The video footage from March 27 shows the encounter between Loreal Tsingine and Officer Austin Shipley. Tsingine's death on Easter Sunday drew an immediate outcry in the city and strained relations between the city and Native Americans. The Navajo Reservation borders Winslow.
A shooting investigation was conducted by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which was reviewed by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. He announced Friday that no charges would be filed against Shipley.
2 new scorpion species found in Arizona
As if there weren’t enough scorpions in the world, two new species have been found in southeastern Arizona, azcentral's Scott Craven reports.
One of the critters was discovered in the Santa Catalina Mountains, and the other in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains, according to an article published in Euscorpius, a scientific journal dedicated to the study of creatures most people want to avoid.
Before you get too excited (or nervous) about previously unknown scorpions, the two new species are closely related to a species first discovered back in 1972.
The new species share the hallmarks of all scorpions, including pincers, stingers and ability to trigger the fight-or-flight reaction in any human. Each is roughly an inch long and incredibly intimidating for their sizes. It's unclear how dangerous its sting is.
Today in history:
- In 1914, World War I began as Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
- In 1932, federal troops forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Army” of World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington to demand payments they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.
- In 1945, a U.S. Army bomber crashed into the 79th floor of New York’s Empire State Building, killing 14 people.
- In 1976, an earthquake devastated northern China, killing at least 242,000 people, according to an official estimate.