Former Tucson officer Ryan Remington facing manslaughter charge for shooting armed suspect nine times

TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - The former Tucson police officer who fatally shot an armed suspect in a mobility scooter last year has been indicted on a manslaughter charge.

Mike Storie, attorney for Ryan Remington, confirmed his client was charged.

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover hosted a 3 p.m. news conference Thursday, Aug. 25, to make the announcement. Conover said Remington was served on Thursday and will have an arraignment next week.

“There is no joy in this announcement today. No joy,” Conover said. “I cannot turn back the hands of time. Not for Mr. Richards and not for Mr. Remington and his colleagues. But we have an absolute obligation to seek justice for the citizens of Pima County. Rest assured that when challenging events occur that require our consideration, we will go quietly and steadily about our work, and we will do what we believe is right.”

Remington, a four-year veteran of the TPD, was off-duty working as a security guard at the Walmart near Midvale Park and West Valencia Road on Nov. 29, 2021.

A Walmart employee told Remington that 61-year-old Richard Lee Richards stole a toolbox from the store.

The employee and Remington followed Richards as he left and asked for a receipt. Richards responded, “Here’s your receipt,” pulled out a knife and kept moving.

The employee said Richards then said, “if you want me to put down the knife, you’re going to have to shoot me.”

Another officer, Stephanie Taylor, arrived just as Richards reached the garden center of a nearby Lowe’s Home Improvement store.

Remington ordered Richards to stay away from the store entrance but Richards ignored him. Remington then shot Richards nine times, causing him to fall out of his scooter. Richards died at the scene.

Attorneys for Richards’ family said they will now file a civil suit against Remington.

“Now that Mr. Remington has been indicted, Mr. Richards’s family will proceed with a civil rights lawsuit against Mr. Remington in the next few weeks,” said John Bradley of Strang Bradley, LLC. “A civil lawsuit is an important part of seeking justice for Mr. Richards and his family, too.”

TPD Chief Chad Kasmar, who was not the chief when the shooting happened, called it a tragedy.

“This tragedy greatly impacted the Tucson community and this department,” Kamar said Thursday. “Today, we received notice that Ryan Remington has been indicted by a grand jury and faces criminal charges. This is now a matter for the courts to adjudicate. I’ll be referring any further questions to the Pima County Attorney’s Office.”

Remington was suspended after the shooting and was terminated Jan. 5.

KOLD’s Valerie Cavazos has been following the case for months. In July, she talked with the PCAO about why the case was taking so long.

Graphic Video From Incident

Below is an edited version of the video of the fatal shooting. KOLD has chosen not to show the whole video due to its graphic nature.

Responses To Indictment

It has been a long and difficult past nine months for Mr. Richards’s family, but they are relieved that former Officer Ryan Remington has been indicted and will face the prospect of justice for the shooting and killing of Mr. Richards.
There must be accountability for Mr. Richards’s death, to the community and to his family, and this is a step in the right direction. Indicting Mr. Remington was the right decision. Mr. Richards was moving slowly in a battery-powered wheelchair when Mr. Remington shot him in the back nine times without warning.
No police officer is above the law, and Mr. Richards was not beneath the law. None of us are. Every senior public official closely involved in reviewing the actions of Mr. Remington shooting and killing Mr. Richards—from the Tucson Police Chief and the Tucson Mayor to the Pima County Attorney and her Office—has reached the same conclusion: Mr. Remington was not justified in shooting and killing Mr. Richards. Today we learned that a grand jury made up of honest citizens from Pima County joined them and reached the same conclusion.
Attorney Rick Resch

We wanted to make sure that the Pima County Attorney’s Office had the time and space to complete their investigation and make a charging decision. We also wanted Pima County citizens, sitting on a grand jury, to fulfill their duties without our involvement.
Now that Mr. Remington has been indicted, though, Mr. Richards’s family will proceed with a civil rights lawsuit against Mr. Remington in the next few weeks.
A civil lawsuit is an important part of seeking justice for Mr. Richards and his family, too.
This was not a rapidly changing, dynamic situation where law enforcement officers are called upon to make difficult split-second decisions. This was a slow moving seven-minute walk alongside someone in a battery-powered wheelchair that, according to the manufacturer and the video itself, has a maximum speed of 5 miles per hour.
The video of Remington shooting and killing Mr. Richards while he was in a wheelchair rightly shocks the conscience of the country. Nothing Mr. Richards did, might have done, or failed to do justified him being shot in the back nine times. There are few instances in this country in which a police officer is indicted for killing a citizen.
This correctly is one of those instances. Now, Mr. Remington must and should be afforded due process of law and every constitutional protection our law offers. We and Mr. Richards’s family note solemnly, however, that while wearing the badge of government power, Ryan Remington denied Richard Richards that same due process of law and constitutional protection.
Mr. Richards had no less right to that than Mr. Remington.
Attorney John Bradley

Below please find the prepared remarks by Pima County Attorney Laura Conover regarding the investigation into the officer-involved shooting that occurred Nov. 29, 2021, at the Lowe’s store at 1800 E. Valencia Road. Spanish translation of the remarks also are included below.
Thank you for joining us on short notice.
En este momento, enviarémos estos comentarios en español a nuestros socios de medios, y con nuestro agradecimiento.
Late yesterday a Pima County grand jury determined a manslaughter charge is appropriate in the shooting death of Mr. Richard Lee Richards at the Lowe’s at 1800 West Valencia Road on November 29 of last year. This morning, Mr. Ryan Remington was served with a summons to court on that charge, and there will be an arraignment next week. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
We are not here today to talk about the facts of the case, and there is a very important reason for that. I have ethical duties not to comment on the facts of pending cases, and even more importantly, I will always hold very hallowed the constitutional right to a fair trial. Because of the decision by the grand jury to press forward, it appears now this case will go to trial, and we will do our best to ensure it will be a fair trial.
We are here today to talk about the process by which it took to finally arrive at this day. As I have been attempting to do since arriving last year, I seek to peel back the mysterious layers of the criminal justice system, to make it more accessible and transparent. And so today, we will walk through the process of such a case and the extraordinary hard work by so many that led to this moment.
On the night of the shooting, the homicide callout phone received a report of the incident. This happens with all fatalities where criminal activity is involved in Southern Arizona, and yes, at times that has meant every night in the last 18 months. We have a dedicated team of veteran prosecutors who go out to the scene in real time to make observations that may lead to criminal charges eventually being filed. Given the gravity of the situation on this night, Mark Hotchkiss, the Bureau Chief for all Major Crimes and Homicides, reported to the scene himself. I will always be grateful for his work that night and since.
Just days following the shooting, I put out a recorded statement asking for calm and promising that we would conduct a thorough investigation. In the weeks and months that followed, I said again and again that we would
do this Right and Not Rushed. I was determined, and so were my colleagues here with me today, that we would set aside emotion and do the work of justice.
The task before me was to create a commission, a think tank of experience to help us navigate such a case. To that end, our office put together a team of seasoned former prosecutors from outside of Pima County to help guide the investigation and inform our decision on how to proceed with potential prosecution. Importantly, by bringing veterans in who have no attachment to Pima County, we brought independence into our investigation. The attorneys who assisted with this included Rick Romley, the longtime Maricopa County Attorney, and Don Conrad, a veteran litigator who served Maricopa County, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, and the United States Attorney’s Office. Between the two of them, we added decades of prosecutorial experience, we added independence, and we added direct, relevant experience from several officer-involved trials in recent years in the Phoenix area. This was critical, as the last jury trial of an officer accused of an unlawful shooting here in Pima County stemmed from events dating back to 1989.
Those two experienced prosecutors enhanced the PCAO attorneys who bring a combined 200-plus years of experience to the Homicide Panel that meets with me every Monday to work through all our homicide cases. Bolstered by the outside experience, PCAO’s criminal prosecutors conducted a preliminary review to determine what additional aspects of the incident required further investigation to do the case justice.
From there, we hired a number of expert witnesses with diverse expertise in similar cases to fully inform our review panel. We conducted our own investigation independent of what the Tucson Police Department had done. That exhaustive review took months to complete. When their work concluded, we reconvened the panel and reviewed it all again. By early summer, it became clear we would begin the work to convene a grand jury to consider criminal charges.
Because the gravity of this case requires handling by a talented, veteran team, our most senior prosecutors and legal staff have been assigned to this complex matter.
In assembling this team and completing this thorough process, this office has been true to our promise that we will take the time necessary to do things right, and not rushed for any reason. My office, despite considerable pressure to rush to judgement, took careful, calculated, and thorough steps to come to this decision. We took the time we needed to get it right.
There is no joy in this announcement today. No joy. I cannot turn back the hands of time. Not for Mr. Richards and not for Mr. Remington and his colleagues.
But we have an absolute obligation to seek justice for the citizens of Pima County. Rest assured that when challenging events occur that require our consideration, we will go quietly and steadily about our work, and we will do what we believe is right.
And with that, we’ll get back to work.
I thank you again for your time.
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover

Suspect’s Past

Richard Lee Richards was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer in Tucson on Monday,... — Richard Lee Richards was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer in Tucson on Monday, Nov. 29.(Arizona Department of Corrections)

According to the Arizona Department of Corrections, Richards has a long violent criminal history.

In 1981, he was found guilty of burglary and sentenced to seven years in prison.

In 1986, he was convicted of armed robbery and was sentenced to 15 years.

In 2007, he was convicted of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault and resisting arrest. He was released in January 2018.

In early 2020, Richards was sentenced in federal court on a charge of “transporting illegal aliens for profit.”

In November 2020, his probation was revoked and he was sentenced to five months in prison. He was set to start serving that sentence in April 2021.

According to a 2021 sentencing memo, Richards had a hip replacement while in prison and it “did not heal properly.” His attorney at the time, Brick P. Storts III, said that is why he was in a wheelchair.

Evidence expert weighs in on TPD shooting, calls it “shocking”

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