Killing of Ryan Whitaker

Ryan Whitaker was a 40-year-old American man who lived in Ahwatukee, Arizona (an urban village of Phoenix, Arizona), who was shot twice and killed by Phoenix Police Department Officer Jeff Cooke at approximately 10:52 p.m. on May 21, 2020. Cooke was accompanied by officer John Ferragamo, who did not fire his weapon. The shooting was captured on bodycam video.

Incident

The police officers had responded to complaint of noise and possible domestic violence from an upstairs neighbor, and had positioned themselves on either side of the door of Whitaker's apartment when they knocked upon their arrival where they could not be seen through the peephole in the door. Whitaker answered the door with a gun in his hand held down at his side and the barrel pointed down toward the floor, and an officer initially said, "How're you doin'?", while shining his flashlight in Ryan’s eyes and then upon noticing the weapon, said, "Hands Hands Hands Hands.” Whitaker now realizing it was the police that knocked on his door immediately began moving his gun towards the ground to drop it while putting his left hand up while audibly saying “Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa” and began going to his knees when Officer Jeff Cooke fired his weapon three times, hitting Whitaker twice in the back after he had already dropped his gun and at the same time he was raising his hands to put them up in surrender. As Whitaker fell down after being shot twice in the back, the hand that had been holding the weapon came back into the view of the cameras completely empty. The entire encounter lasted 5 seconds. Whitaker's girlfriend emerged from the apartment, asked why he was shot, and was told, "He pulled a gun on us, ma'am."

When recovered, the gun was found inside the apartment, behind where Whitaker had been kneeling when shot. After repeated demands for release of the bodycam footage, edited footage from both officers' cameras was released 55 days after the incident.