Two former Phoenix police officers were fired and arrested on Saturday after court docs tied them to a violent Aug. 5 traffic stop in south Phoenix. Antonio Felix and Luis Vasquez Jr. now face multiple felony charges after investigators said the encounter turned into an assault, a threat, and a failed attempt to make the stop look routine.
The case turns on what happened just after 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, when Vasquez and Felix were driving an unmarked Phoenix police Tahoe and began following a Dodge Charger in south Phoenix. Investigators said the officers’ overhead lights and siren were switched on and off in a way that did not match standard police traffic-stop practice. Near 15th Avenue and Broadway Road, the patrol vehicle struck the Charger’s rear bumper, and detectives later found damage that matched the push bars on a Phoenix police Tahoe.
For readers searching docs on this case, the reason is simple: the paperwork lays out conduct that went far beyond a traffic stop. Court filings say Vasquez threatened to break a window if the two occupants did not get out. Felix allegedly grabbed the woman in the passenger seat and warned he would break her arm if she stayed inside, then used a Taser on her multiple times. The forensic download of that Taser showed six safety activations and 29 electrical discharge events during the encounter.
The driver, too, was allegedly beaten. Vasquez is accused of punching him repeatedly in the head, face, eyes, nose and groin, while Felix pressed a Taser against his arm and ribs. Prosecutors say Vasquez told Felix to keep tasing the driver “until he does what he says,” and that Vasquez drew his handgun and threatened to shoot the driver in three seconds. Felix allegedly answered that Vasquez should shoot “if the driver does anything stupid.” The charges include aggravated assault, kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence, hindering prosecution, and threatening and intimidating.
Vasquez told detectives he believed he was stopping a drunk driver. He said he followed the car through multiple turns while switching his emergency lights on and off, and that the window broke as he tried to pull the door open while the driver was closing it. He also admitted punching the driver and pulling his hair when the driver would not get out of the car and appeared to be reaching for something. Vasquez further acknowledged drawing his gun and threatening to shoot the driver, then said he later returned to the scene to retrieve items left behind from the stop, though the paperwork does not identify what those items were.
That gap matters because the case now sits between two versions of the same night: one told by the former officer, and one laid out in court paperwork and a later police account. Phoenix Police Chief Matt Giordano called the conduct egregious criminal conduct, and the filing says the information matches what had already been released in a Tempe police report. What happens next will turn on whether prosecutors can turn those allegations, the Taser data, and the vehicle damage into a courtroom case that sticks.
