Incident: Sunday, September 6, 2026, near 19th Avenue and West Cheryl Drive, Phoenix, Arizona.
A family member called the Phoenix Police Department at about 11 a.m. about a man in a mental-health crisis who was cutting himself with a knife. It was a crisis call from the first second. Officers found Jonathan Marquez Delgado, 20, in an alley near 19th Avenue, cutting his own neck. He got up and walked off, yelling.
A crisis-intervention-trained officer tried to talk him down. You hear it on the camera: we’re just here to help you, drop the knife, you’re not in trouble, we’ll get you help. Delgado kept walking with the knife. Then he turned and ran at the officers. One officer fired a Taser. It did nothing. Two officers fired. He fell and dropped the knife. Officers rendered aid. Phoenix Fire pronounced him dead at the scene.
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No officers or bystanders were hurt.
Delgado is dead, so there is no case against him. Nobody else was charged. The shooting has not been ruled on. The Arizona Department of Public Safety is running the independent investigation, and the charging decision belongs to the Maricopa County Attorney, who is described only as reviewing it.
These officers did a good job. Let me tell you what they were dealing with. A man cutting his own throat with a butcher knife, not listening to a single command, walking away from them, and then deciding to turn around and come at them.
They did all the right things on the front end. Hey, you’re not in trouble. We just want to help you. We’ll figure out whatever is going on. That is exactly what a crisis-trained officer is supposed to say, and it is exactly what they said. None of it is going to work on somebody who is all the way gone. They got a Taser round off too, and it did nothing.
Now listen to how long they hold their fire. He is walking away with the knife in his hand and they are not shooting. They are still not shooting. He makes the decision for them the moment he starts sprinting at them.
On camera that looks like a long distance. It is not. The amount of ground a man can cover running with a knife is incredible, and people usually do not fall down the second they get shot. Once you start sprinting at police officers who are holding you at gunpoint, with a butcher knife in your hand, after being told over and over and over to drop it, the decision has been made and you are the one who made it. You cannot let him sprint at you and stab you.
He died at the scene, which tells you the officers got good hits. A lot of the time they are not fatal shots right away. Nobody else was hurt. It is another mental-health case, and it is unfortunate, but this is a good shooting with no issues.
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