Ex-convict arrested for killing 1, wounding 5 in Phoenix-area shooting spree

Ryan Giroux, or Mesa, Arizona, was arrested after a shooting spree

(Image credit: Twitter/@CNN)

last updated 19 March 2015

After a four-hour manhunt involving SWAT teams, police in Mesa, Arizona, arrested Ryan E. Giroux on Wednesday for a shooting spree that started in a hotel and spread out to the Phoenix suburb. The violence started early Wednesday with an argument at the Tri-City Inn, and by the time police captured Giroux, one person was dead and five were wounded.

Apart from the first shooting, in which one man was killed and two women injured, "everything else seems to be random," said Detective Esteban Flores, a spokesman for the Mesa Police Department. Giroux, 41, has served three stints in state prison, starting in 1994, for burglary, theft, attempted aggravated assault, and a violation involving marijuana. The mugshot from an earlier arrest above shows Giroux with white supremacist tattoos on his face, including "skinhead" written where his eyebrows used to be. Flores describes the day's events, before Giroux's arrest, in the Associated Press video below. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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