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Karla Garzona

Age : 44

Gender : Female

Race : Latino/a/e

Date : 08/29/2022

Location : Days Inn, 21636 North 26th Avenue, near 26th Avenue and Deer Valley Road

City : Phoenix

County : Maricopa

State : Arizona

Agency : Phoenix Police Department

Officer(s) :Kevin Lucas; additional officers Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Bystander killed during mass shooting and police response

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/28/2022, 44-year-old Karla Garzona was killed alongside 36-year-old Misael Arevalo when the vehicle in which they were traveling entered the Days Inn parking lot near 26th Avenue and Deer Valley Road during an ongoing mass shooting. Garzona had no involvement in the violence and was one of two uninvolved people killed before Phoenix police arrived and exchanged gunfire with the shooter.
Surveillance footage subsequently released by Phoenix police showed 24-year-old Isaiah Steven Williams leaving a motel room wearing a ballistic vest, helmet, gas mask and knee pads and carrying a semiautomatic rifle. He began firing throughout the motel property, apparently selecting vehicles and buildings without any evident connection to the people inside them.
Garzona and Arevalo were inside a white vehicle carrying five people when it entered the parking lot. Surveillance footage showed Williams notice the approaching vehicle, aim his rifle toward it and fire. Garzona and Arevalo were struck and killed. Three other people escaped from the vehicle and ran toward safety.
Williams continued moving through the property and firing. He attempted to throw a Molotov cocktail into a nearby Waffle House, but it struck a window without breaking the glass or igniting the building. He continued shooting toward vehicles and buildings across Deer Valley Road, wounding additional civilians.
Phoenix police officers subsequently arrived and Williams fired extensively at their patrol vehicles. Four police SUVs were struck. One officer suffered a gunshot wound and Officer Kevin Lucas was injured by shrapnel. Lucas fired at Williams during the exchange.
The investigation determined that Lucas did not kill Williams. Williams ultimately sustained a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head and died at the scene. Police recovered his rifle, handgun, multiple magazines and incendiary devices.
The scale of the attack became clearer after investigators processed the scene. Approximately 200 spent rifle casings and five empty magazines were recovered, and three civilians in addition to Garzona and Arevalo were wounded. Both police officers survived their injuries.
The later evidence establishes that Garzona was an entirely uninvolved bystander. She was not the subject of a police investigation, pursuit or enforcement action and had no known connection to Williams. She was killed because the vehicle in which she was traveling entered the parking lot during his shooting rampage.
As with Arevalo, Garzona was killed by Williams rather than by police. If she remains in the database because her death forms part of the same police incident in which Williams exchanged gunfire with officers and subsequently died under police duress, her Event classification should preserve the distinction that she was a bystander killed by the mass shooter rather than someone killed directly by police action.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND:
Phoenix Police Officer Kevin Lucas was the identified officer who returned fire during the later exchange with Williams. Lucas did not shoot Garzona; Williams had shot Garzona before police exchanged gunfire with him.

SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.azfamily.com/2022/08/30/3-dead-2-police-officers-injured-after-shootout-outside-north-phoenix-hotel/
https://www.azfamily.com/2022/09/10/police-release-graphic-video-phoenix-mass-shooting-that-left-3-dead-2-officers-hurt/
https://www.azfamily.com/2022/09/03/second-officer-injured-mass-shooting-north-phoenix-motel-released-hospital/
https://www.phoenix.gov/policesite/Documents/OIS_Media_Advisory_Library/OIS_22-16_2600_W_Deer_Valley.pdf