Girlfriend loved abusive man killed by police

The girlfriend of Jeffrey Scot Heinze, a 22-year-old man shot and killed by a Mesa police officer on Friday, said Heinze was very aggressive and threatened to take her life, according to a court document.

The girlfriend, 21, also stated in the North Mesa Justice Court document filed the day of his death that Heinze was a mental patient and had said he would get away with taking her life because of his mental illness, something he was not properly medicated for.

Mesa police shoot, kill man they say had knife

"He gets in a rage and talks crazy," the girlfriend stated in the court document. "He is very violent, and fighting has always been an answer for everything."

The couple had an altercation that escalated at their residence in the 4900 block of East Colby Street in the Stonecrest neighborhood Friday morning, according to the court document, hours before Heinze was killed in their home about 1:10 p.m. Police, who had returned to the home to serve Heinze with an order of protection on behalf of his girlfriend, said Heinze threatened them with a knife. The investigation is ongoing.

The neighborhood is near Higley Road and University Drive.

Police have not released Heinze's name as the man who was killed, but the Tribune confirmed it through the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office, court documents, property records and a Facebook social media page his family and friends set up as a memorial to him.

Police did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Tribune on Monday seeking more information about the shooting.

Police responded to the altercation between Heinze and his girlfriend about 8:30 a.m. Friday after she called 911 but did not arrest him because they determined no crime had been committed, according to Detective Mike Melendez, a Mesa police spokesman.

Neighbors in the Stonecrest neighborhood where Heinze lived expressed a dislike for him because of the noise they said he made with his vintage vehicles as he gunned them around the block, how rude he was when they would ask him to be quiet, and the yelling between him and his girlfriend they said was sometimes heard in the middle of the night.

But in an outpouring of support on Heinze's Facebook memorial page, family, friends and even the man's girlfriend who requested the order of protection against him on Friday, painted a different portrait of him.

The Facebook page described Heinze as someone who loved his pet dogs, camping and tinkering with his cars, including a cream-colored late 1960s-early 70s era Volkswagen van and a 1970s-era white station wagon.

A statement from Heinze's girlfriend on the Facebook page says: "I miss you Scot, so much! I love you with all my heart, I always have and will continue to forever ... Nothing makes sense, but I do know that all you wanted was to be better, and Lord knows you were trying and now everything, all the pain, hurt, anger, stress and worry are gone. I know you are getting what you were so badly trying to achieve ... peace."

Heinze's girlfriend also said Friday morning he made threats to come to her place of work, changed the locks on the doors of the house so she could not get back in, and tried blocking her car in the driveway with one of his vehicles after he slammed the garage door on the hood of her car, according to the court document.

In court documents, she also described how Heinze placed a pillow over her face on Oct. 14 when he removed the lock from the bathroom door and pulled her out of the bathroom by her wrist. Another time, on July 6, according to the document, the girlfriend stated, "Scot pulled me out of my chair and held me on the ground and slapped me in my face. He has never stopped from smacking me in the face from time to time, claiming '(expletive) needed to be slapped around when out of line,' and told her she is to be seen and not heard."

A statement from the girlfriend's mother on the Facebook page said, "We never saw eye to eye on things. We had words, we fought, we butted heads. But you were the love of my daughter's life. She loved you with every fiber of her being. I know you knew that. And I know that you truly loved her. Things ... lots of things got in the way, and I'm sorry that there wasn't enough time to fix them. My heart is heavy that you had to leave that way."