Tucson SWAT Team Called To Help With Deadly Multi-Hour Standoff

TUCSON, AZ – Tucson police responded Saturday to a 911 caller’s report that the caller and his girlfriend were injured during an assault and were inside his apartment at 201 E. Yavapai Road. Police had no idea then that a multi-hour standoff and an officer-involved shooting were in their future.

When Tucson police officers arrived at the apartment complex, they were told by neighbors that they saw the man outside his apartment and that he was yelling and holding a shotgun. So police surrounded the apartment building and, as a precaution, evacuated residents of several nearby apartments.

Additional officers were called to the scene from the Tucson Police Hostage Negotiations Unit and Tucson Police SWAT Team.

Negotiators talked to the man — identified as Victor A. Parsons, 42 — for several hours, but he wouldn’t leave the apartment without a gun. From inside the apartment, Parsons began firing rounds in the officers’ direction. He refused to follow police commands to leave the apartment and instead kept on firing more rounds. Meanwhile, negotiators continued attempts to persuade Parsons to leave the apartment peacefully.

Around 8:30 p.m., Parsons finally left the apartment, but he was still armed with the shotgun.

SWAT Officer Bradley Katherman, a Tucson Police Department officer for eight years, fired his gun at Parsons and hit him. Police immediately began to administer first aid, but Parsons died at the scene.

When officers went into Parsons’ apartment, they found his girlfriend Samantha A. Boyd, 36, dead, with “obvious signs of trauma,” Tucson police reported.

No TPD officers were harmed in the incident.

TPD’s Violent Crimes Section detectives are continuing the criminal investigation. An administrative investigation is also underway by the Office of Professional Standards to examine police actions in the incident, which is standard procedure for any officer-involved shootings, according to TPD officials. TPD’s Critical Incident Review Board is also examining the police response taken.