The Phoenix Police Department is looking to move forward after a fall season interrupted by the deaths of multiple officers.
The most recent was 25-year-old Officer Shane Figueroa, who died Saturday while responding to a gunshot call with his Phoenix South Mountain Precinct squad.
Figueroa died at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center after a traffic collision with a man police believe had been drinking. Officers from Figueroa’s squad were the first on the scene.
Figueroa was ejected from the car. He was not wearing a seatbelt.
Sgt. Marc Rivers, Figueroa’s former squad leader, said Figueroa outshined expectations as a young member on his squad.
“He taught me a hell of a lot about being a cop in Phoenix,” Rivers said.
The driver of the car that hit Figueroa, 50-year-old Salvador Vivas-Diaz is currently being held in the Maricopa County Fourth Avenue Jail after he was found to be in the country illegally, police reported.
During an initial court appearance Monday the suspect admitted he had been drinking before the accident, a police report said.
He faces charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and obstructing a criminal investigation, court documents said.
Vivas-Diaz has been voluntarily deported three times since 1998, police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said. In 1994 he was deported after being arrested by the Department of Public Safety.
Members of Figueroa’s precinct gathered Monday night at the Phoenix Police Department headquarters to honor him and show support for his family, a wife of two years and 3-month-old daughter.
Officer Miguel Seville, Figueroa’s partner, read a statement he prepared to pay tribute to Figueroa, a man he called his brother.
“I know my partner will have my back from up above, protecting me on my next watch,” he said.
A memorial service for Figueroa will be held 10 a.m. Saturday at the Red Mountain Institute at 7126 E. McKellips Road in Mesa.
A second Phoenix officer and young father died in the presence of Phoenix police officials last month, though he was not on duty.
Officer Barry Scott, 22, died Sept. 16 after taking part in a charity boxing match called “Guns ’n’ Hoses.”
Officers joked the event was an exhibition of the “Valley’s toughest fireman and police officers” to raise money for an Arizona non-profit that supports families of officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
Scott, who served an 18-month tour in Iraq as part of the Army National Guard, died four days after the event due to a blunt-force trauma to the head.
Scott was matched against a Chandler firefighter during the fight, and his death was ruled an accident.
He is survived by a wife and 11-week-old daughter.
Earlier in the fall season, the station lost two officers due to medical conditions. Neither officer was on duty at the time.
Phoenix Police spokesman Luis Samudio said the past months have been some of the most difficult he has seen in his eight years with the department.
“I don’t foresee the department making any changes in response to the deaths in the near future,” he said.
He said the department is still responding to Figueroa’s death and is coping as best as it can.
Rich Wilson, ASU Downtown Phoenix police commander, said though the campus has a full police department in place, Phoenix officers still respond to all student 911 calls.
ASU also has three police liaisons from the Phoenix station who regularly patrol the Downtown campus.
Reach the reporter at tessa.muggeridge@asu.edu.
