PHOENIX — Phoenix police arrested 47-year-old Spencer Vidal at his home after a man was shot and killed Friday night in a business parking lot near 39th and Grand avenues, and investigators say automated license-plate readers helped them find the vehicle used to leave the scene.
Officers were called to the commercial property just after 9:30 p.m., the department said in an account reported by KTAR and ABC15. They found the victim in the parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds. Phoenix Fire Department crews pronounced him dead at the scene.
Homicide detectives took over after the scene was secured. Early interviews pointed to a verbal argument between the victim and the suspect before the shots. The suspect was gone by the time officers arrived. Plate-reader hits on the car used to flee gave detectives a direction, and they identified Vidal and arrested him at home. He was booked into jail on one count of second-degree homicide. The investigation is still open.
Police have not released the victim’s name, pending notification of family, and they have not described what the argument was about or whether anyone else was hurt. The booking charge is an initial count; prosecutors review homicide bookings before deciding what, if anything, to file in Maricopa County Superior Court.
The department has leaned on automated license-plate readers in a growing number of Valley cases, pairing camera hits with witness descriptions when a suspect leaves in a vehicle. In this case, police said the technology supplied the vehicle information that let them locate Vidal rather than a name offered at the scene.
The Grand Avenue homicide is separate from a later fatal shooting near 19th and Maryland avenues, where a driver was found dead inside a crashed vehicle after midnight and a suspect was arrested at a nearby apartment. Police have not suggested the incidents are connected.
Detectives are asking anyone who was at the business near 39th and Grand around 9:30 p.m. Friday, or who has video of the parking lot or the street, to contact Phoenix police homicide.