MESA, AZ — A man has died at the hospital after he was shot by Mesa officers Monday evening.
Mesa police say officers responded to McKellips Road east of Country Club Drive around 6:30 p.m. after receiving two 911 calls: one for a person with a knife and another for the sound of a gunshot. Police say the two calls ended up relating to the same person.
Police say the suspect, 26-year-old Caleb Stanford, had threatened multiple people with a knife in the area. One of the men threatened by Stanford says he fired a gun at the ground in order to defend himself.
Officers arrived to find Stanford with a knife and commanded him to drop it, according to a release from the police department. Stanford at first appeared to respond to commands and had begun to lay down before "coming at the officers aggressively with the knife," leading at least one of them to shoot the man.
Stanford was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced deceased, police said.
No officers were injured in the incident.
Police say they had attempted to make several checks on Stanford for mental health concerns in recent days but he was uncooperative and refused any assistance.
The shooting was the second by officers of the department in less than 12 hours, as around 7:30 a.m. Mesa police say a man with a large metal tool was shot and killed after charging at officers near Val Vista Drive and Brown Road.
