Dwight Cornwell is the seventh person to be shot and killed by Phoenix police so far this year. Two additional people died this spring after being handcuffed or restrained by Phoenix officers — although the cause of death in those two cases is unclear.
The number of police killings this year is outpacing that of recent years. In 2022, Phoenix police officers shot and killed 10 people. In 2021, cops shot and killed six, according to Washington Post data.
The department is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for, among other things, its officers' use of deadly force.
Bodycam Footage of Deadly Encounter
On April 14, the Phoenix Police Department released what the agency calls a "critical incident briefing” about Cornwell's April 1 death. The new footage and dispatch audio released reveals that Cornwell may have been struggling with mental illness — frequently a factor at play in police killings by Phoenix officers.The incident briefings are edited compilations of bodycam footage, dispatch audio, and other materials that the department releases following a lethal shooting or death that occurred while a subject was in custody. The briefings do not contain unedited footage from these incidents, and the agency regularly takes months to release that footage. The lack of transparency from the department has drawn widespread criticism from activists.
In Cornwell's case, the briefing details the second of two incidents involving officers and the man.
Officers with the department were first called to an apartment complex near 14th Street and Bell Road at 7:10 pm on April 1. According to the briefing, officers found Cornwell attempting to break and enter an apartment.
When police knocked on the door of the residence, there was no answer. Cornwell was not a resident of the apartment, police said, so officers escorted him off of the property and then left.
Later that evening, according to released dispatch audio, a woman who said she knew Cornwell called to say he was trying to break into her apartment. The unidentified woman indicated that she was hiding in the bathroom and that Cornwall had broken her bedroom window. "He suffers from bipolar schizophrenia," she said. "He carries a gun with him. And he shouldn't. He's mentally unstable."
Phoenix police did not release any additional information about Cornwell's mental health.
When officers arrived, Cornwell was in the parking lot of the apartment complex. As officers approached, he pulled a handgun out of his front pocket. One officer then shot him multiple times with pepper balls — a less lethal ammunition that releases pepper spray upon impact.
While being hit with multiple rounds of pepper balls, Cornwell appeared confused as he walked away from officers and took refuge under a parking awning. Officers ordered that he drop the gun, and at one point, he is heard in the bodycam footage saying, "No." Cornwall then pointed the gun up directly over his head and fired a round at the structure above him. He did not point the gun at officers.
After Cornwell fired the gun, the briefing footage shows that officers shot and killed him.
Body cam footage released by the Phoenix Police Department shows officers exchanging gunfire with Derin Holmes on February 22.
Phoenix Police Department
Man Dies After Officers Handcuff Him
Next week, the Phoenix police department is expected to release bodycam footage and additional information about the death of 29-year-old Zacharie Irambona. An investigation by the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner is still ongoing, and few details about the man’s death are available.Police said that they responded to a call on the morning of April 10 after an individual called to report a theft. When an officer encountered Irambona, he was "lying down in the front yard of a home," police said. Officers handcuffed him and called the fire department.
Police said the handcuffs were then removed and Irambona was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
So far in 2023, Phoenix police officers have been involved in at least nine deaths, including seven fatal shootings. The people police killed are all men and range in age from 29 to 76.
January 3: Officers shot and killed Cosme Medina Núñez, a 46-year-old man who was holding a pair of scissors.
January 7: Officers shot and killed Kenneth Hearne, 37, who was armed with a handgun. Hearne shot a Scottsdale police officer the day prior.
February 11: Bryan Funk, a 40-year-old man who had just been released from prison, died after multiple officers pinned him to the ground, knelt on his back, and restrained his legs during an arrest. The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner is still investigating Funk's cause of death.
February 22: Derin Holmes, 41, took his own life as officers approached him. While officers shot at Holmes, who was holding a gun, they said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. An investigation by the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner found the manner of death to be suicide.
February 22: Officers shot and killed Jason Resendez, 47, who pulled out a gun as officers approached him.
February 25: Officers shot and killed Matthew Anthony Sansotta, 36, after he reached for a gun in his car during a DUI investigation.
March 5: Officers shot and killed James Saucedo, 42. Officers said Saucedo shot a woman and then pulled a gun on officers when they arrived.
March 6: Officers shot and killed Anthony Castro, 40. Castro was stabbing a woman when he was shot.
March 14: Police said Daniel Parra, 37, fled when officers tried to stop him as he walked in an HOV lane on Interstate 17. Officers chased Parra to a QuikTrip near Cactus Road, where he brandished a knife and barricaded himself in a storage room and set it afire, police said. When SWAT officers entered the room, they said Parra was dead.
April 1: Officers shot and killed Cornwell, 76, after police said he fired a handgun into the air while they were investigating reports of attempted burglary at an apartment complex.
April 19: Irambona, 29, died after officers handcuffed him as he lay in the front yard of a home.
