Jacob Dindinger, an EMT who was fatally shot while answering a call last month, will be laid to rest Monday.

Dindinger was one of two people killed during a July 18 shooting spree. He had been on the job for four months. He died on July 29.

The public is invited to pay their respects along the memorial procession route beginning at about 10:20 a.m. at Adair Funeral Home, 8090 N. Northern Ave. in Oro Valley. A memorial service will take place at Casas Church at 11 a.m., immediately after the procession.

Procession route:

• Start on Northern Ave., heading south.
• Turn Right onto W. Magee Rd
• Continue West past N. La Canada Blvd
• Turn right onto W. Old Magee Rd.
• Turn right onto N. La Cholla Blvd
• Continue north past W. Overton Rd
• Continue north past W. Lambert Ln
• Turn left onto Cross Rd and arrive at Casas Church, 10801 N. La Canada Blvd.

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Chandler Police Department

Chandler police have increased training around interactions with people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities through such events as Pizza With a Cop in 2019.

PHOENIX – Cynthia Macluskie has memories of her 3-year-old son sneaking out of their Cave Creek home late at night, while she was asleep.

“At 6 o’clock in the morning, someone’s banging on my door. … I still get goosebumps from this,” she said, looking down at her arm during an interview.

A couple who’d woken up early for work found her son, Mark, and the Macluskies’ dog playing near a ravine, and the family’s address was on the dog’s collar.

That was more than 20 years ago. But Macluskie, vice president of the Autism Society of Greater Phoenix, said she knows other families might not be as lucky as she was that night when a loved one with a disability goes missing.

Mark was engaging in a behavior that’s common among youngsters on the autism spectrum: wandering or elopement – a tendency to run off from a safe area or caregiver. Research shows it’s common in about half of youth on the spectrum; 1 in 4 children are missing long enough to cause concern and are most in danger of drowning or traffic injuries.

“I think that happens more than we hear reported because people are embarrassed. They don’t want to admit that it happened,” said Macluskie, who shares her story as a cautionary tale. “That took a lot of ingenuity for him to get out of our house. He was pretty fast and pretty smart about it.”

Pima County officials are warning the public not to approach the site of a recent landslide in Tucson Mountain Park.

The landslide, which knocked down or destroyed numerous saguaro cacti, happened at about noon Sunday on the southeast side of Golden Gate Mountain. The area is not close to any roads or trails in the park.

“We’re asking that everybody keep a safe distance from the area,” said Karen Simms, division manager for Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation. “The ground is currently very unstable, and it’s going to take some time before it naturally heals.”

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Beth Wallis/News21

Navajo Chief of Police Phillip Francisco sits in his office in Window Rock. Since taking the position in 2016, he has been a vocal advocate for upgrades in the department, which has 200 employees.

WINDOW ROCK – Navajo Chief of Police Phillip Francisco sits ramrod straight at his desk, surrounded by manila folders brimming with paperwork and a Darth Vader figurine that wields a pen as a lightsaber.

The chief, an Army veteran hired in 2016 after serving in several law enforcement departments in New Mexico, took charge after nearly eight years of rotating acting chiefs. He came from Farmington, New Mexico, to serve and protect the largest Native American tribe in the U.S. Francisco, 45, whose father is Navajo, grew up near the reservation.

A year before Francisco was sworn in, Officer Alex Yazzie was shot and killed while answering a domestic violence call. Francisco – who had been working closely with the Navajo Police Department while serving at nearby agencies – felt called to step in.

“Seeing the struggles that the Navajo Nation Police Department went through, I thought, ‘Maybe they need a leader.' "

The increased demands of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated issues in the department, Francisco said: chronic understaffing, dispatch systems that trail technology by 50 years and archaic facilities that include 71-year-old administrative buildings and a converted post office.

The 200-member department polices a rural area larger than West Virginia, he said, with dirt roads and houses so remote they don’t have addresses and can be out of range of police radios. During the pandemic, officers often worked 16- to 24-hour shifts to fill in for sick or quarantined colleagues.

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Several roads, trailheads, recreation areas and portions of the Chuck Huckelberry Loop are closed because of flooding, according to the Pima County Transportation Department. Recent storms have produced flash-flood warnings from the National Weather Service.

The Santa Catalina Mountain trailheads that will be closed are Finger Rock Trail, Pima Canyon Trail, Ventana Canyon Trail, Pontatoc Canyon Trail, and Bear Canyon Trail. All gates at these trailheads will be closed, and signs will be put up warning the public of the closure. 

County officials suggest not using the Loop through the weekend because of water, silt and mud. Loop closures are:

• All underpasses on the Rillito, Pantano and Julian
• Cañada del Oro Magee Road underpass
• Santa Cruz east bank, south of Ina Road
• Santa Cruz west bank, between Sunset Road and Camino del Cerro Road

Roads closed as of about 1 p.m. Friday:

• Jamie Ave North of Bopp Road
• Aldon Road North of Bopp Road
• Snyder Hill Road from Sandario Road to Desert Sunrise Trail
• Wentworth Road I-10 to Sahuarita Road
• Wentworth Road North of Speedway Bl.
• Wentworth Road South of Cape Horn Dr.
• San Joaquin Road South of Bopp Road
• San Joaquin Road North of Old Ajo Highway
• Old Ajo Highway West of San Joaquin Road
• Tanque Verde Loop Road North of Speedway at the Tanque Verde Creek
• Tanque Verde Loop Road South of Linden at the Tanque Verde Creek
• Snyder Road East of Scenic Mountain Dr. at Ventana Wash
• Snyder Road West of Placita Ventana del Rio at the Ventana Wash
• Andrada Road West of Calle Rinconado
• Calle Rinconado South of Andrada to Calle Agassiz
• Avra Valley Road West of Brawley Wash
• Avra Valley Road East of Trico Road
• Soldier Trail at Agua Caliente Wash
• Limberlost Road West of Soldier Trail at Agua Caliente Wash
• Ft. Lowell at Agua Caliente Wash
• Sandario Road North of Snyder Hill Road
• Sandario Road at the Black Wash (about 1201 S. Sandario Road)
• Sandario Road South of Desert Oasis Tr.
• North Bald Eagle Between West Cheetah St to North Camino de Oeste
• Mission Road North of Valencia
• Old Spanish Trail E of Valencia Road to Pistol Hill Road
• Old Spanish Trail North of Valencia Road to Escalante Road
• Sahuarita Road Alvernon Way to Wilmot Road.
• Avra Valley Road East of Clayton Road
• Manville Road West of Avra Road
• Manville Road East of Reservation Road
• Trico Road South of Santa Cruz River Bridge

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PHOENIX – Health experts are concerned that Arizona’s recently approved budget, which bans public schools and universities from enforcing mask mandates and COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated students, is endangering public health across the state.

In a virtual panel assembled by the Committee to Protect Health Care, a national advocacy organization that aims to “fight for quality, affordable health care that protects patients over profits,” experts weighed in on how the legislation, as well as Gov. Doug Ducey’s June 15 executive order banning masks at schools, could prolong the pandemic in Arizona.

“Students are being linked to community outbreaks, including in Arizona, and they accounted for 72% of all school-related cases in Maricopa (County) at one point in the past spring,” said Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Arizona. “Banning schools from adopting a simple, cost-effective and scientifically proven safety measure like mask wearing while we are still in the midst of a pandemic makes absolutely no scientific or public health sense.”

Daily COVID-19 cases in Arizona have declined since March, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services, with only several hundred new cases per day now compared with the thousands of daily new cases earlier this year. However, in recent weeks, that number has ticked up slightly.

The state’s low vaccination rate also was a major concern for the experts on the panel.

“Only 23.5% of Arizona youth, aged between 12 and 17, have been vaccinated,” said Dr. Ricardo Correa, program director for endocrinology at the University of Arizona. “Policymakers and politicians must do better for Arizona and for children in our state, who deserve elected leaders who will use science and other resources to keep them safe during a pandemic.”