Police Officer Rolando Alberto Tirado

Rolando Alberto Tirado

Police Officer Rolando Tirado was shot and killed after stopping a vehicle in a parking lot on South 35th Avenue in Phoenix.

Officer Tirado and another officer were working an off-duty security detail at a business in the city of Phoenix when they stopped a truck with dark tinted windows because the driver had been driving erratically in the parking lot around 1:15 a.m. As he was talking to the driver, the front-seat passenger exited the SUV, walked around the back of the vehicle and shot Officer Tirado from behind. Officer Tirado succumbed to his wounds and died at the scene.

The gunman then engaged in a gun fight with the second officer, during which the gunman was shot and killed. The second officer, also from the Buckeye Police Department, was transported to a local hospital in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds to his shoulder, neck, and lower body.

The driver of the SUV was critically wounded during the gun fight, and a third occupant fled the scene but was captured two days later by the Phoenix Police Department.

Officer Tirado was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and served with the Buckeye Police Department for seven years. He had served in law enforcement for an additional four years. He is survived by his wife and two children.