Police: Driver swerved at cops before being shot

Sherry Levesque was talking to her husband on the phone Thursday, but the conversation was cut short when gunfire blasted through Joseph Levesque’s truck and ripped into his body.

“They just shot me, baby. They shot me.”

Those are the words Sherry Levesque says her husband uttered just before his phone fall to the floor, still transmitting to her ear the voices that she said followed.

“Put your hands up,” said one.

“He’s bleeding out,” another said.

Two Mesa police detectives had just shot 43-year-old Joseph Levesque, a wanted ex-convict, following a bar fight at Hambone Sports Bar and Grill, 903 E. Main Street, where one of the combatants pulled out a gun.

“I fell down on the floor of the kitchen crying,” Sherry Levesque said. “He was so surprised; I can hear it in his voice.”

Police initially said Joseph Levesque rammed into a patrol cruiser with his car, prompting police to shoot. But on Friday, Mesa police spokesman detective Chris Arvayo said detectives in unmarked vehicles opened fire after he twice “swerved” his truck toward one detective, who had his weapon drawn and was yelling at him to stop.

After the shots, Levesque’s truck knocked into a patrol cruiser because it continued to travel after he was wounded, Arvayo said.

Levesque, who served more than two years in prison for aggravated DUI and misconduct involving weapons, was shot multiple times and flown to a local hospital. He is currently in stable condition, and charges are pending further investigation.

Levesque’s wife and brother, Mick Bristoll, said they have seen him and that he is heavily sedated.

“He’s three-quarters of the way dead right now,” Bristoll said while shaking his head in front of the Levesques’ east Mesa home.

According to Arvayo, Joseph Levesque had gotten into a dispute with a man at the bar over which one of them served more time in prison, then left the bar and returned with a gun.

Police suspect that when Levesque returned to the bar, he pulled the gun out on a third man. He then fled the area and used his cell phone to call his wife.

Police said unmarked police vehicles not flashing their lights followed Levesque, along with a helicopter overhead.

“He makes it pretty clear he knows he’s being followed,” Arvayo said of Levesque’s conversation with his wife, adding that Sherry Levesque reported to a detective that he had told her a police helicopter was following him.

But Sherry Levesque disagrees with police.

“He didn’t know anybody was following,” she said, adding that seconds before she heard police shoot her husband, he had only then noticed one marked police car make a U-Turn to follow him.

Arvayo said that when Levesque was cornered by detectives as he tried to pull into a gated neighborhood, near Broadway and Greenfield roads, two detectives in vests marked “POLICE” jumped out of their cars, pointed their guns and commanded him to stop.

Levesque then drove his truck toward one detective, who ran around to the passenger side of the police car, Arvayo said.

“The guy stops and backs up and drives toward him again, and that’s when the shots were fired,” Arvayo said. “At that point, that was the second time he was driving toward him and that’s when both detectives shot at the suspect into the vehicle.”

Arvayo said a marked patrol cruiser arrived and was struck by Levesque’s truck, which was still in motion after police fired the shots.

By firing at Levesque inside his truck, police were able to “eliminate the initial threat,” Arvayo said, but officers are trained to then get out of the way if the vehicle continues moving. Police said they also found a gun in “plain view” inside Levesque’s truck.

“You fire at the threat, and the driver would be considered the threat,” Arvayo said.

But Levesque’s family members said they disagree with police and plan to hire an attorney.

“He had no gun in hand,” Bristoll said.

Sherry Levesque added, “I’m not just letting this drop.”