A Week Ago Sunday, Downtown Tucson Had a Mass Shooting

A week ago in the popular downtown Tucson area around the 100-block of Congress Street, there was a late-night/early-morning crowd at the pizza parlors and other businesses. 

I imagine folks had been out all evening doing those things you do – I can still remember – and there’s sometimes no better way to cap off a busy Saturday night than pizza and munchies at two in the morning at one of the eateries scattered among the bars in a popular city district.

The sidewalks had lots of foot traffic, and the pizza joint itself was pretty packed when apparently some words were exchanged between two groups who knew each other and were not on the best of terms.

And then one malignant man decided to do this as he walked away.

Mass shooter taken down in just 10 seconds after he opened fire into a crowd in Tucson, Arizona.

David French, who was on probation for a 2024 shooting, is accused of opening fire into a crowd of people, injuring nine.

When he tried running away, a Tucson police officer opened… pic.twitter.com/om5liBdvzT

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 26, 2026

It absolutely seemed like the hand of God – there was a Tucson police officer on the scene when 21-year-old David Leroy French (that’s his name, yes) opened fire into the crowd. And it took that magnificent cop all of ten seconds to knock the gunman to the ground with his own return fire, neutralizing him, as even more Tucson police officers arrived out of nowhere.

Amazing response.

…Video obtained by the Arizona Daily Star shows French with another man, and it looks like they either pushed each other or the other man was trying to get the gun from him. French can be seen firing his gun at least 10 times, according to police, and the other man runs away.

People sitting on the curb can also be seen running away, and in the background, people across the street are seen darting off and ducking down. 

French looks like he is about to cross the street before coming onto the sidewalk. That is when police are first seen on the scene, and French is shot by an officer. Some officers stay with French while others run toward the victims. 

There were heroics in and around the restaurant, too. Ordinary people shielded strangers or yanked them to safety. One man made sure to grab his pizza.

The pizza parlor’s footage – almost a minute of it – shows belts being taken off to use for tourniquets, as employees try to keep customers at the back of the store, and then hustle them out through the rear entrance, away from the street madness.

54 seconds of real time footage from the Empire Pizza patio during the shooting that took place in downtown Tucson.

What we know is the shooter was already a convicted felon from a case stemming from a separate incident in 2024 that the Pima County prosecutor completely botched.… pic.twitter.com/izGQdmbzrr

— Tucson Crime Free Coalition (@tucsoncrimefree) July 25, 2026

Nine innocent people were struck by French’s indiscriminate, potentially lethal gunfire.

As details about the young shooter became known, many were saying French is a shining example of the results of a Pima County prosecutor’s office gone soft.

Tucson mass shooting suspect given probation in prior case

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover is facing backlash over her office’s prosecutorial strategies after court documents revealed the 21-year-old man arrested in connection with Sunday’s downtown Tucson mass shooting was on probation for a 2024 shooting incident.

…At about 5 a.m. on Oct. 6, 2024, a then 19-year-old French and some of his friends were hanging out at a self-serve car wash near West Valencia Road and South Sixth Avenue, court records say.

After being asked to leave, French and two others confronted a car wash employee.

Seeing French had a rifle, the employee ran away from the three towards the median of a nearby road.

Surveillance footage later reviewed by Tucson police showed French pointing his “AR-15 style” rifle at the employee and firing in his general direction before leaving on foot, court records say.

French was located and arrested six days later.

Cops did their part. County Attorney Laura Conover did her thing, as her tough-on-crime, retired predecessor explained their philosophical differences.

…As part of the plea, prosecutors dropped the dangerous offense allegation which would carry a mandatory prison sentence. Had it been upheld, French would have faced between five and 15 years if the case went to trial.

“If you drop the allegation, he gets a shot at probation, and the judge can do what they want,” said David Berkman, former chief criminal deputy county attorney in Pima County. “It’s up to the prosecutor not to drop the allegation.“

As former chief criminal deputy county attorney, Berkman oversaw criminal prosecution for Pima County. Now that he is retired, he and Conover have had many public disagreements over the handling of criminal prosecutions.

“She just has a different philosophy: ‘troubled kid who shoots an AR-15 at somebody — he should get a second chance.’ To me, he goes to prison,” Berkman said. “And when he gets a little older and becomes a little more responsible, he can get out of prison and understand what he did was wrong.”

For her part, Conover was busy sniffing at Berkman’s opinion …

…”I guess David Berkman is still in the mix,” Conover said. “I guess he has not yet found joy in his retirement. Sorry to hear that.“

…even though, to Berkman’s point, when French’s defense attorney brought up the 19-year-old’s ‘troubled upbringing and remorse‘ (WAAH), sniffy Pima County Attorney Conover offered no sentencing suggestion to the judge. Naturally, the judge let the poor, troubled youth off with probation, saying – all irony aside – he was going to give the youth ‘a shot.‘

And here French was Sunday morning before last, with lots of shots at people on the streets, while still on probation.

A probation that that same Pima County Attorney has now moved to revoke.

YOU GO, GIRL.

And if Pima County is ringing bells, yes – it’s the place with the horrifically botched Nancy Guthrie investigation and a Tucson murder and robbery rate that is soaring. All of this they are trying to blame on weapons purchase increases.

Tucson’s homicide rate rose 63% compared to the last two years to date. So far in 2021, statistics from the Tucson Police Department show that 49 people have been homicide victims. At this point in 2020 and 2019, that number was 30. Police officials say 70% of homicides are the result of gun violence.

“It’s hard to wrap our hands around this because it comes down to its simply not even road rage, its parking lot rage,” said Tucson Assistant Police Chief Kevin Hall. “We’ve had incidents where people are fighting over a parking spot in a Circle K and there is a shooting and people die.”

TPD has also seen an increase in robberies tied to homicides, according to Hall.

“You know they have this phone app, Offer Up. People will buy, sell, trade on Offer Up, they will meet in some pretty risky places at different times of night, and they get robbed. And if they fight back, they get shot,” Hall said.

This is Illinois blaming Indiana for Chicago gang shootings territory. I mean, come on.

…Hall said an increase in gun purchases in the U.S. may be part of the issue and Arizona’s gun laws aren’t helping.

And the usual suspects are already circling – Giffords, etc – even though the Tucson mayor herself had to dial back her own ‘Soft on Crime’ initiative last fall.

I mean – this headline.

Tucson Mayor Announces She Will Now Allow Cops To Address Crime

YOWSAHS

In a departure from the “soft on crime” approach, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero announced she will allow law enforcement to address crime.

Romero called the city’s approach the “Safe City Initiative.” The mayor announced the initiative on Sunday following months of community outcry over the ever-worsening levels of homelessness and crime in the city. 

Tucson Police Chief Chad Kasmar said felony arrests increased by 50 percent and misdemeanor arrests increased by 100 percent over the last five years. Kasmar told KGUN9 that fentanyl’s rise is largely to blame; per the chief, 80 percent of addicts on the streets will refuse treatment because they know there are no consequences for breaking the law. 

“It’s the reality that they know, if they only get caught with a lower level of possession, that they’re likely to have those charges dismissed during initial appearance, and they think, well, I’ll just be out. I’ll just be out in six or eight hours,” said Kasmar. “It’s not a big deal [to them].”

One Tucson native since 1999 described it this way in a Reddit post last November:

“The nightly shootings, open drug use and dealing, street prostitution, and gang activity is unlike anything I’ve seen here,” said the user. “It used to be the case that there were a half dozen bad intersections. Now it seems like every intersection is bad. Half of the bus stops have people slumped over or doing drugs. It feels like Gotham in a Batman movie.”

Still sounds as if they have some serious tough love to hand out and that not everyone is on board.

Decline is a choice,

 

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