Maricopa Police Department has released new information in an officer-involved shooting that killed a teenager on the Gila River Indian Community last summer, including the partial identification of another child involved and how the three burglary suspects, two of them children, were high on meth at the time of the shooting. 

The FBI gave MPD permission this week to release 46 police report pages regarding the June 28, 2023, shooting to InMaricopa through a Freedom of Information Act request. 

The newly released report shines new light on the criminal charges, injuries and police response that came from the fatal gunfight between Cpl. Joshua Fox and a now dead, unidentified 17-year-old. 

The document also details charges submitted against Jose Martinez, 20, and another 17-year-old referred to by name for the first time as Enrique. 

The call 

MPD Sgt. Michael Ewald was patrolling the city when he was dispatched to Seville Drive in Tortosa at 1:29 a.m. on a report of a car burglary.  

The man who dialed 9-1-1 told dispatchers that when he confronted Martinez and the two boys, they threatened to murder him. 

Ewald blacked out his cruiser’s lights and turned onto Madrid Avenue where he saw the three males, wearing black jackets and blue bandanas over their faces that could signal gang affiliation, “ransacking” two black Korean sedans, according to the police report. 

When Ewald turned on his headlights and emergency lights and drove toward them, they all fled on foot, trying to climb over a residential wall. 

While his friends cleared the wall and fled into an adjacent dirt lot, Enrique could not scale it, ran down the street and was tackled and handcuffed by Ewald after a short foot pursuit. 

‘Shots fired’ 

Police narratives from Fox and Officer Zakery Louis were withheld in the document released this week but body-worn video camera footage released last year shows the gunfight and Louis putting a tourniquet on Fox. 

Police narratives from other officers share more about what happened after the video ends. 

Officer Trevor Burns was with Ewald and Enrique when he heard the shots fired and made his way back to the dirt lot. North of the canal, he found Fox struggling to walk, with a tourniquet around his left leg, and noted he “was obviously in an excruciating amount of pain.” 

Burns drove Fox toward Maricopa Fire and Medical Department station 572, where he met a firetruck halfway and loaded him into it. Fox was later transferred to an ambulance. 

Cpl. Cory Benoit said he walked into the dirt field north of the wash and found Martinez laying on his stomach, the 17-year-old handcuffed with gunshot wounds and Louis standing over him. A Glock handgun with an extended magazine was lying on the ground next to the shot teen. 

Benoit noted the teenager had two bullet holes in his back and one in his stomach. He and Louis cleaned and patched the wounds, placed the child in the back of Burns’ police cruiser and transported him to Hartman and Honeycutt Roads where they met medics. 

The teenager was loaded into an ambulance there and died while enroute to Chandler Regional Hospital. 

The investigation 

The FBI and Gila River Police Department were called to assist in the investigation because the shooting happened on GRIC land. 

Maricopa police gave FBI special agents access to Fox’s body-camera footage, and they interviewed Martinez, according to Sgt. Colt Homan’s report. 

Martinez told FBI agents his cousin, “Robster,” dropped them off at a nearby dirt road. He said the threesome wanted to look at cars, not steal them. 

Enrique, however, told MPD he was a teen father and he wanted to steal a car to go see his kid, so he, Martinez and the other child tried to steal 10 cars in Tortosa by jamming a screwdriver in the ignition of several of them. The group successfully broke into “six or seven” of the cars, breaking the window of one, but could not get any of the engines to start. 

Enrique admitted he smoked a blue Percocet pill and had been smoking meth before the shooting from Robster’s “G-bong.” Officers found Enrique in possession of a meth pipe. 

Enrique said the group also intended to steal valuable items, but finding none, only managed to steal one nicotine vape. 

Fox’s vest, duty belt, other clothes, service weapon, magazine and the bullet in its chamber were impounded at the police station. The handcuffs used on the dead suspect, his pantleg, cash and a police cruiser were also sent as evidence. 

Charges 

Police submitted criminal charges against the surviving child with the first name Enrique — five counts of burglary, two counts each of criminal damage and possessing tobacco and one count each of trespassing, drug paraphernalia, criminal nuisance and being a runaway child. 

Five charges of burglary, two charges of criminal damage and charges of trespassing, criminal nuisance and contributing to the delinquency of a minor were referred against Martinez. 

MPD is waiting for approval to release more body-camera footage, audio of 9-1-1 calls and photos of the crime scene, according to Maricopa Records Administrator Andy Juarez.