As of Sunday afternoon, there have been at least 515 people killed by police in 2015.
The 500th person to be killed by law enforcement officers took place Monday in Arizona after the wife of 69-year-old Richard Warolf called the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to report that her husband was armed, drinking, depressed and wanted to die by “suicide by cop.”
So they sent out the SWAT team and attempted to negotiate with him during a four-hour standoff in which he threatened to shoot them if they entered his home.
But he also stepped out of his Sun City home several times during the standoff to feed the birds that had congregated near his door.
During one of these feeding sessions, SWAT team deputies tossed what is described by local mediaas a “percussive device” to distract him, which apparently is a kindler, gentler way of describing a flash grenade.
The idea was to distract him, then tackle him, but a sheriff’s spokesman said the explosion only caused him to point his gun towards them.
And that was when they killed him.