‘Seconds and inches change everything’
DPS sorting out answers in heat of fatal scuffle
Eight minutes.
A scuffle.
And a law-enforcement officer’s worst nightmare.
Troopers working the overnight shift Wednesday knew something had gone wrong when an otherwise innocuous call on Interstate 10 in the West Valley included words anyone in police work trains for but hopes against.
“Shots fired, officer hit!” an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper radioed to dispatch. “One DPS unit injured, unresponsive.”
The shots? From a veteran trooper’s own gun.
The unresponsive person? Tyler Edenhofer, dead on his 52nd day in the field with the department.
In the hours and days that followed, supporters planned vigils — one is slated for 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Capitol. A family began planning a funeral, possibly for later this week. Debriefings and news conferences and talks about the mental health of the
suspect and of officers have abounded. So, too, have questions. Officials are uncertain how 20-yearold Isaac D. King, a man first contacted because he was believed to be throwing objects at cars and stepping in traffic, purportedly managed to grab a veteran trooper’s gun.
DPS will conduct its own investigation into the shooting. It will take weeks and possibly months for investigators to reveal how two shots went off as the fight escalated, killing Edenhofer and injuring another trooper. And it’s not clear why it took a team of responding officers eight minutes to get King in custody and locked in the back of a patrol car.
“This isn’t a movie fight. This isn’t scripted. These are people, and there’s arms and bodies going everywhere,” said Col. Frank Milstead, DPS director, in an interview Friday with reporters from The Arizona Republic. “I don’t know if the gun was taken out and commands were given. I don’t know if King was able to pull it from the holster. I don’t know if it just came loose from the holster.
“I just don’t know that answer.”
‘Medically induced coma’
After the fight in which a stun gun was deployed and King suffered “significant” injuries, doctors put him in a “medically induced coma” at a Phoenix area hospital. He had been refusing treatment, and doctors decided it was the only way to keep him alive, Milstead said.
King since has been taken out of the coma and was “alert” as of Friday, a DPS spokesman said.
The determination of when King could be released from the hospital and into law-enforcement custody was being made day by day, officials said.
King did not appear to have any criminal background but did have a “mentalhealth history” that included medication for anxiety and depression, Milstead has said.
Additional details about what specifically that history included — and how it might have contributed to what happened Wednesday — have not been made available.
Sharae Green, one of King’s cousins in Ohio, told The Republic the family moved to Arizona late last year. She and other family members said King has five siblings.
King’s mother, Sabbie Green, on Friday referred reporters’ questions to a law firm, which did not immediately return a request for comment.
On Thursday, Milstead said King’s mother told investigators she had last seen him in the backyard of their home, less than an hour before the incident, jumping on a trampoline.
An unusual quandary has emerged from the shooting, which comes in a year marked by a sharp uptick in the number of times Valley officers shot at suspects.
Why didn’t other officers fire back? “I don’t know why,” Milstead said when asked about law enforcement’s lack of lethal force in the incident. “I’m guessing that no one realized that he had the gun until he had the gun.”
Officers from the Goodyear Police Department arrived moments after the shooting, a department spokeswoman said. Milstead indicated that at least one of the Goodyear officers was wearing a body camera that might have captured part of the fight, presumably after the shooting.
It could be the only video evidence from the scene — none is known to exist that shows the shooting itself.
‘He just got here’
A May 4 graduate from the academy, Tyler Edenhofer had been with the agency for 52 days, an emotional Milstead told a room of television cameras and news reporters Thursday.
“You just got him,” Milstead recounted the trooper’s mother, Debbie Edenhofer, telling him at the hospital around the time Wednesday slid into Thursday.. She was right, he continued.
“He just got here.” Edenhofer graduated from the 29week DPS State Trooper Academy, celebrating the accomplishment May 4 with class No. 508. Graduates, including Edenhofer, then started the next phase in the new-hire process: 12 weeks of field training.
In the beginning, new troopers typically watch as field training officers go about their day-to-day duties. Over time, the trainees take on increasingly complex calls and move toward solotrooper status. By the end, as was the case for Edenhofer, the instructor fades into a more casual, observational role — that’s why Trooper Sean Rodecap was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a more relaxed non-retention gun holster.
Edenhofer was a lanky 24-year-old with a buzz cut he had held onto since his time in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Frank Cable in Guam.
His department-issued hat looked huge on his head in his DPS photograph. His uniform looked slightly baggy in a photo his mom shared that was taken at home, a family dog inching into the bottom of the frame.
Young in years, Edenhofer was old in wisdom and professionalism, Milstead said in an interview. In the trooper’s short time with the department, he had earned the respect of high-ranking brass. Milstead said he was the kind of man you’d want to date your daughter or marry into the family.
His mom thought the world of him, too.
“He was a great man, my pride and joy!” Debbie Edenhofer told The Republic on Thursday. “My whole life was him.”
Debrief, carrying on
Milstead addressed reporters at 3 p.m. Thursday.
An hour later, he heard from troopers, including Edenhofer’s classmates from the academy. The debrief lasted more than four hours, and everyone was given a chance to share their thoughts — about the shooting, about law enforcement, about moving forward from grief.
Members of law enforcement, fire and EMS deal with tragedy every day.
But it’s rare for it to hit so close to home.
“We’ve learned over the years the mental-health issue is very important for the longevity and the health of our people,” Milstead said. “We’re a little bit better at that. That piece is really important to everyone carrying on.“
‘Seconds and inches’
Milstead didn’t sleep much between
Wednesday morning and Thursday night, when he finally got six hours of shuteye before another round of meetings, briefings and interviews.
On his drive home Thursday night, after the debriefing and the day’s nonstop events, he called to check in on Rodecap. Hired by DPS in May 2008, he celebrated a decade with the department the month Edenhofer graduated from the academy.
Eighty-two days later, the mentor’s gun was used to kill the mentee.
It was an officer’s own hell. Rodecap was hanging in there, all things considered, Milstead said. The shooting weighed on him, but he had a strong support system in a law-enforcement family — Rodecap’s dad was a retired trooper, his brother a current one.
Milstead’s attention then turned to Trooper Dalin Dorris, the first on the scene Wednesday night and the other trooper to suffer a gunshot wound in the fight.
In some ways, he was reliving a tragedy from earlier in his career. Dorris had been on the job for four years one day in December 2009. That’s when one of his best friends, Trooper Christopher R. Marano, was hit and killed while deploying stop sticks during a car chase in Phoenix.
The death shook him — it rattled the department.
But people and agencies bounce back.
Then came Wednesday. The bullet from his colleague’s gun ripped straight through the flesh and muscle atop his shoulder, next to his neck. It was nearly the same spot where Edenhofer was shot. But the bullet that hit Edenhofer ricocheted through his body, killing him. Dorris’ was a through-and-through wound — he was released from the hospital within hours.
Dorris was said to be in “good spirits” given the situation, and that was still the case when Milstead last spoke with him.
Milstead vowed not to “lose anyone else” due to mental anguish and wondering what could have been done differently.
He said he doesn’t want his troopers to relive the nightmare.
“Seconds and inches,” Milstead said bluntly, “change everything.”
Reach the reporter at 602-444-8515, jpohl@azcentral.com or on Twitter: @pohl_jason.