The death of Loreal Tsingine, as told by the Winslow police officer who shot her

In late September, almost six months after he shot and killed a Navajo woman named Loreal Tsingine, Winslow police Officer Austin Shipley sat down in his police station across from two Mesa police detectives assigned to complete an internal investigation.

For the next hour and six minutes, he pored over his perspectives on the shooting and the time since then: how he had "nitpicked" his department's weapons policy. How he had never actually reviewed his own body-camera footage, averting his eyes when others tried to show him. And how, in his memory, he couldn't believe he had reached such a conflict over a shoplifting call.

"I kept trying to make her stop," he told the investigators. "She just wouldn’t stop."

New documents from the internal-affairs investigation those Mesa police officers conducted recap many details of the Easter Sunday shooting in Winslow, an incident that rattled the northeastern Arizona city and left tensions that still linger. The files released by Winslow on Wednesday include a full recording of the interview with Shipley — the most complete account of his version of events yet.

The Mesa Police Department was asked to conduct an internal-affairs investigation May 26, but the inquiry was delayed pending a prosecutorial review of the Arizona Department of Public Safety's criminal investigation.

Though Tsingine's family filed a wrongful-death claim, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery announced in July that his office would not file criminal charges against Shipley. The investigation by Mesa was reactivated on July 26 and was concluded in October, when it was handed over to the Winslow Police Department.

In a memo to Christopher Vasquez, interim police chief in Winslow, Mesa police internal-affairs Detective Thomas Denning said although their investigation was focused on alleged policy and procedure violations, they declined to make any recommendations, leaving it up to the Winslow police to make their own conclusions.

At the time of the interview, Shipley was on administrative leave. He resigned at the end of October, after meeting with his lieutenant about the internal investigation, according to Winslow City Manger Stephen Pauken.

"He had as much time as he needed," Pauken told The Arizona Republic. "He wasn't forced to resign."

Shipley's perspective of the shooting

Winslow police said Shipley fired five times and killed Tsingine while responding to a report of a convenience-store theft. Tsingine, accused of shoplifting at a Circle K, had been holding a pair of scissors during the confrontation with Shipley.

Shipley told investigators that his initial plan of action was to detain Tsingine until the secondary officer, Sgt Ernesto Cano, could arrive.

"I just wanted her to stop," he said. "I was just going to get her stopped. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m just get her to stop, sit on the curb, wait.' "

However, Tsingine ignored his commands and "had this blank face," Shipley said. He wasn't aware that she had a weapon initially but he felt that she was attempting to flee.

When asked by investigators “if he had utilized his full potential of physical strength on Tsingine when he attempted to detain her,” he replied, "No sir.”

““In my mind, at the time, I just didn’t feel it was necessary. I mean my mind at the time I was thinking, speaking frankly, ‘This is stupid. Why is she acting like this over a petty shoplifting incident?’ That was my mindset at the time. I was kinda, I was in disbelief. I was like, ‘Why is she actively resisting? Why is she acting this way over something so small and petty?’ "

Shipley was going to "place her in handcuffs for my safety and her safety," but she resisted and pulled out the scissors, he said.

He repeated to Mesa investigators what he had told DPS investigators in May: The scissors made him fear for his and Cano's lives.

"I kept trying to make her stop. She just wouldn’t stop," Shipley said. "At one point, it was just clear as day in front of me, and my mind said it to me and I verbalized it, scissors were right here and, from what I could remember and my mindset was, she’s trying to stab me."

Tsingine's autopsy report obtained by The Republic in July showed she was shot twice in the front upper torso area and struck twice in her back. When asked to explain the shots to her back, Shipley said he did not intend to fire the shots at her back.

"... It kind of shows that after I fired the first few rounds, she spun around pretty quick and I just didn't recall her spinning around like she did, like that," he said after being asked to review his body-camera footage.

Shipley had prior contacts with Tsingine

Shipley told DPS investigators in May that he had never before seen Tsingine and that he was not aware of her criminal history. In body-camera footage of the shooting obtained by The Republic in August, Shipley is heard saying, “I honestly don’t know anything about her. I don’t recognize her," when asked by another officer about the woman lying on the ground with gunshot wounds.

Winslow police reports indicate Shipley had three previous documented contacts with Tsingine; one occurred about two months before the March 27 shooting.

Attorney: Loreal Tsingine's family 'relieved' by Winslow officer's resignation

On Aug. 29, 2013, Shipley conducted a welfare check involving Tsingine. He wouldn’t encounter her again until April 27, 2015, when it was reported to police that Tsingine had woken up with no clothes on and was possibly sexually assaulted.

Records show that she was taken to the Little Colorado Medical Center, and in his report, Shipley wrote that she appeared to be on drugs. There was no suspect or suspects, he wrote.

On Jan. 17, Shipley investigated a report that Tsingine and a man were pushing each other and had left clothes in the middle of the street.

“I could not remember her if you had asked me the same day at the same time. I didn’t know who she was. To my understanding, I just, I didn’t know who she was … there was nothing that she had done before in the past that stood out in my mind,” he told investigators, noting that he makes hundreds of contacts throughout a single year.

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When asked by Mesa investigators if he believed he was truthful with DPS investigators, Shipley replied, “Yes sir.”

“From the start of my career and the very beginning, I’ve always been upfront and honest … I’ve (had) my fair fill of hearing about how people think that I am a liar and how I falsified things and … it’s just not true,” he said.

Unauthorized, unsecured firearms in vehicle

Photographs taken by DPS of the shooting scene reveal Shipley had inside his patrol vehicle two firearms, neither of which was authorized by the Winslow Police Department as on-duty weapons.

The guns — a .40-caliber Glock and a .45-caliber Kimber Pro — were in an unsecured “range bag” on the front passenger seat, records show.

Shipley said he had been approved to carry the weapons after testing them at a shooting range with a particular sergeant, but that sergeant did not remember, nor did he have documentation, to back up Shipley's claims. But the sergeant said he didn't have reason to doubt Shipley.

Shipley admitted to investigators that, since being placed on administrative leave, he has “nitpicked” the Winslow police’s policies and procedures and found that he was in violation of having more than one backup weapon at a time.

In the interview, investigators informed Shipley he had also violated the departmental policy on the modifications of firearms having to be completed by a qualified Rangemaster, by installing night sights and a stippling grip to the Glock 35.

Shipley makes a final statement

At the close of the interview, Shipley sheds light into how his personal life has been affected by the shooting in a final statement to investigators.

“Putting everything in a nutshell, I get asked quite a bit by my wife if there’s anything I would’ve done differently that day,” he said. “My typical response is, ‘I wish I had called in sick sometimes.’ … None of this I ever wanted to happen.

“I know it’s part of the career choice that you have to say, ‘Are you willing to take a life? Are you able to take a life if you need to?’ And you say, ‘Yes.’ ”

Shipley goes on to say that while training prepares officers to assess threats, it doesn’t prepare them for what happens after a death on the job.

His final takeaway, he said, is that he has to learn from his errors to become a better officer.

“I know there’s always mistakes to be made and there’s always hindsight that’s looked at in the moment, or in the incident, but … I beat myself up quite a bit about that over more than a period of time.

“I just want to move on and try and just keep doing better,” he said.