his squad mates, surrounding a pickup truck they had stopped on an access road off the Black Canyon Freeway in north Phoenix. The man inside, Aaron Gingras, had shot and killed a Phoenix couple merely because they had no drugs or money to give him when he'd knocked on their door, at random, the night before. When the SAU caught up with him, he was wearing body armor and holding a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Officers quickly removed several other occupants from the truck. But Gingras stayed inside. He kept his hand on the pistol.

Bob Baker, the squad sergeant, says he picked Skip Roberts to take one side of the truck and cover Gingras while Baker and Fred Spitler talked to him through the other window. "Because I know ifand when that guy turns to shoot me -- because I'm the one talking to him so that's where he's focused -- Skip is going to shoot. I trust him to do that. He won't hesitate."

According to a detailed report on the incident, witnesses (including a motorist who wasn't paying attention and drove right up on the scene) confirmed what happened next. Baker told Gingras over and over again to put down the gun and get out of the truck.

But he didn't.

"You could just see that look in his eye, that he'd decided what the heck he might as well go for it," says Baker. "He got about a half turn and Skip killed him."

Baker, who keeps track of such things, says Roberts, in the point position, comes