Crimes, tragedies shock Arizona in 2019
Arizona seized worldwide headlines numerous times in 2019 with a slew of dramatic and heart-wrenching crimes and tragedies.
A former teacher was sentenced to prison for molesting her 13-year-old student. Multiple law enforcement agencies faced intense backlash for highprofile excessive force incidents caught on video.
And the appalling story of an incapacitated woman under round-theclock care at Hacienda HealthCare unexpectedly giving birth and the arrest of her alleged rapist sparked outrage.
Some notable crime and tragedy stories of the year:
Nurse arrested after incapacitated patient is raped and impregnated
An incapacitated patient at Hacienda HealthCare unexpectedly gave birth to a baby on Dec. 29, 2018. A 911 call made in the moments following the delivery indicated the staff at the facility wasn’t aware the 29-year-old patient was pregnant.
Phoenix police immediately began searching for her rapist. One of the woman’s male nurses, Nathan Sutherland, is accused of the woman’s rape and impregnation after DNA identified him as the father of the child. He is in jail awaiting trial for multiple charges of sexual assault and abuse of a vulnerable adult.
The case made international news and marked the start of extreme public scrutiny for the intermediate-level care facility. The facility again made news when maggots were discovered near the surgical incision of another patient and when officials confirmed they had unknowingly been operating the clinics without required state licensing.
Distracted drivers kill two officers
Salt River tribal police Officer Clayton Townsend was fatally struck by a distracted driver on Jan. 8 during a traffic stop on Loop 101 near Scottsdale. The driver, Jerry Sanstead, told investigators that he was texting his wife when he crossed two lanes on the freeway and hit Townsend.
Sanstead was booked into jail on charges of manslaughter, aggravated assault and endangerment. He has yet to be formally charged by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
Phoenix Officer Paul Rutherford was also struck by a driver, on March 21. The 51-year-old was at the scene of a car crash when he attempted to cross the street to respond to a report of a man with a gun on Indian School Road near 75th Avenue. An unrelated vehicle fatally struck him as he crossed the street.
In October, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Detention Officer Gene Lee was the third officer to die in 2019 in the line of duty. He was attacked by an inmate at Lower Buckeye Jail. Lee died on Oct. 30 from a severe head injury sustained in the attack.
Tempe officers shoots teen dead
Former Tempe Officer Joseph Jaen shot 14-year-old Antonio Arce in the back on Jan. 15 after the teen ran from the officer while clutching what law enforcement said appeared to be a gun. The weapon turned out to be a nonlethal airsoft gun.
The teen’s death was met with protests and drew national attention.
Jaen, who was put on paid administrative leave, resigned from the department in May. He’s currently seeking disability benefits from the city.
An attorney filed a notice of claim, which serves as a precursor to a civil rights lawsuit, on behalf of Arce’s parents in June. The family is demanding $5 million to settle the case.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has yet to decide whether Jaen should face criminal charges.
Body-cam footage shows Glendale officer using stun gun 11 times
A 2017 video showing Glendale Officer Matt Schneider using a stun gun on Johnny Wheatcroft multiple times during a traffic stop — including after the man was on the ground and handcuffed — emerged in February.
The video showed Schneider use a stun gun on Wheatcroft 11 times while his children cried and screamed in the back seat. At one point, the officer stunned Wheatcroft in the genitals.
Schneider was suspended for three days specifically for using the stun gun while Wheatcroft was already handcuffed and no longer resisting.
Gov. Doug Ducey called the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s first investigation, which declined to charge Schneider, “whitewashed” and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery asked the FBI to review the case.
The case is still being reviewed.
Court fight ensues after children taken in raid of Chandler home
A child-welfare case drew attention to the use of force by police and the battle over parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children.
In March, a doctor told Chandler parents to take their toddler to a hospital to ensure a spiking fever and lack of vaccinations weren’t signaling meningitis. But the parents decided not to when the child’s fever subsided.
Police then entered the house with a warrant to remove the child for medical attention and a DCS caseworker took all three children into custody. The dramatic video showed an officer break down the door to get to the child.
The state and court attempted to prevent media coverage of the case after the video went viral. During one hearing, a Maricopa County Juvenile Court judge told a reporter with The Arizona Republic and Rep. Kelly Townsend, RMesa, to leave the courtroom.
It then became a flash point on social media for some parents who believe it’s easier for DCS and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to keep their kids when the public isn’t watching.
The case worked its way through juvenile court. It could take months of hearings and DCS-mandated instructions before the parents regain custody of their children.
YouTube mom charged with abusing seven kids
Machelle Hobson was arrested in April on suspicion of abusing and neglecting her seven children while featuring them in her popular YouTube videos.
Several of her children told Maricopa police they were being beaten, starved and pepper-sprayed as discipline. Police said Hobson would abuse her children if she was displeased with their performances in her YouTube channel “Fantastic Adventures,” which had a large following. The videos, which were removed from YouTube following her arrest, garnered millions of views.
Hobson pleaded not guilty to the charges and a judge later declared the 47-year-old incompetent to stand trial, but restorable.
Hobson died at a Scottsdale hospital in November after she suffered a nontrauma related brain injury at a Pinal County jail.
ICE deports spouse of U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan
Immigration officials deported the spouse of a U.S. solider killed in Afghanistan in 2010, leaving the couple’s 12year-old daughter in Phoenix.
Jose Gonzalez Carranza was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on his way to work, and then deported to Nogales. He was married to Pfc. Barbara Vieyra, who was killed on Sept. 18, 2010, while serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.
However, an immigration judge reversed the decision and Gonzalez Carranza was returned to Phoenix without explanation after the case received international media attention.
10-year-old girl gunned down in driveway after road-rage incident
Ten-year-old Summer Bell was gunned down in her driveway and later died from her injuries in a suspected road-rage incident in April.
When Summer and her family pulled into their driveway on West Moreland Street in Phoenix, a truck stopped behind their car and the driver opened fire, officials said.
Summer and her father were both shot and taken to a hospital. Her mother and sister were also in the car but were not injured, officials said.
The driver of the truck drove away after the shooting, officials said.
Police linked Joshua Gonzalez and his truck to the shooting through multiple tips and surveillance video. The truck, which had been modified to change its appearance, was found five miles from the scene of the shooting.
He was arrested and charged in Brown’s death.
Former teacher Brittany Zamora sentenced for molesting student
Former Goodyear teacher Brittany Zamora was arrested in 2018 for molesting her 13-year-old student, but the case got international attention in 2019 after a Republic article revealed she molested the boy while other students were in the classroom.
Police reports recounted how she had sex with the boy multiple times in her car and classroom — once with an 11year-old male student in the room. The two even sexually touched each other while her sixth-grade class was in session and the other students obliviously watched a video.
Zamora was sentenced to 20 years in prison in July, the lowest possible sentence allowed for her crime, after pleading guilty. She will be on probation for the rest of her life and must register as a sex offender.
During a news conference following the sentencing, Zamora’s attorney Belen Olmeda Guerra implied that the underage victim seduced Zamora and emphasized the fact that he was technically a teenager.
Phoenix police stop goes viral
A bystander video showing Phoenix Officer Christopher Meyer pointing a gun at a car occupied by Dravon Ames, his pregnant fiancee, Iesha Harper, and their children put a national focus on the department.
The couple said it all stemmed from a call to police that their daughter stole a doll from a Family Dollar store — something the family said was an accident.
In one of the May 27 videos, which was recorded by a resident of the apartment complex, officers can be heard yelling and cursing at the couple. Meyer can be seen pointing a gun at the car, and then is heard saying, “You’re going to get f--king shot!” He also tells Ames, “I’m going to put a cap in your ass.”
The video spurred public apologies from Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams and Mayor Kate Gallego.
The family’s lawyer, former Attorney General Tom Horne, asked the city of Phoenix for $2.5 million for each of the four claimants — a total of $10 million — to settle the case.
The incident drew further attention to a department already under scrutiny for a record number of police shootings in 2018 and then the 2019 release of a database of public Facebook posts and comments made by officers from several jurisdictions across the United States, including Phoenix. Some of the posts endorsed violence against Mexicans, Muslims, women and criminal defendants.
Officials promised more training and change. Gallego pushed for more assistance for people with mental-health issues and those battling addiction or depression. Community groups pushed for less aggressive police behavior and more transparency.
Phoenix police equipped all patrol officers, neighborhood enforcement teams, the crisis intervention team and community response squads with body cameras. The department also implemented a new policy requiring officers to document each time an officer points a gun at a person.
In October, Williams fired Meyers over the Ames incident. She fired Clinton David Swick following an investigation into his Facebook posts.
Mothers and children are ambushed and killed in Mexico
Nine family members were ambushed and killed in November near La Mora, Mexico.
The three mothers and six children belonged to a fundamentalist sect with historical ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They held dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship and had ties to Arizona.
The families totaling 17 people were traveling in three SUVs from La Mora to LeBaron through a remote mountain area when they may have been accidentally caught in an attack by a faction of one cartel targeting members of another cartel.
Mexican authorities found a burned, bullet-riddled Chevrolet Tahoe with Rhonita Miller and her four children inside. A white Suburban with the bodies of Dawna Langford and two children inside was found about 11 miles away from the Tahoe. Christina Johnson’s body was found a short distance away.
Mexican authorities announced they had detained multiple suspects in the slayings on Dec. 1, but did not provide further details.
Scott Warren found not guilty of harboring, concealing migrants
Humanitarian aid volunteer Scott Warren was found not guilty of intentionally harboring and concealing two undocumented migrants from the Border Patrol in the remote Arizona desert in November.
The high-profile case tested the legal limits of humanitarian work along the U.S.-Mexico border. Prosecutors accused Warren, a volunteer with the aid group No More Deaths, of intentionally shielding the migrants to help them avoid Border Patrol detection and providing them directions to bypass a nearby checkpoint in January 2018.
He faced up to 20 years in prison. Warren’s attorneys argued in court that Warren was motivated solely by his humanitarian principles to “prevent suffering and death” in the Arizona desert. The 12-person jury in Tucson took just over two hours to reach a not-guilty verdict, striking a blow to prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona who sought a conviction against Warren after the first trial ended in a hung jury in June.
3 children die after floodwaters swamp vehicle on Tonto Creek
Three children were swept away during a rainstorm on Nov. 29 after their vehicle got stuck in flooded Tonto Creek.
The children were traveling with six other family members in a militarystyle truck when it became stuck while trying to cross Tonto Creek at the Bar X crossing off State Route 188, near Roosevelt Lake northeast of the Phoenix area.
The crossing was closed with barricades and signs because of a storm that dropped an estimated two inches of rain in the area.
The three young children stayed in the vehicle. Officials said it was unclear how the children went from the truck into the creek or if they had been wearing seatbelts at the time.
Daniel and Lacey Rawlings, the parents of two of the children, and four other children were rescued. The area was searched extensively for the children. The bodies of their 5-year-old son Colby, and his 5-year-old cousin Austin were found the next day. The body of 6-yearold Willa Rawlings was found two weeks later.