Alex James Barnett, on the run from law enforcement for more than five days after the fatal shooting of a Tucson police recruit and wounding of his fiancee, was taken into custody Aug. 24.
Tucson television
station KOLD reported that the Pima County Sheriff's Department confirmed Barnett was in custody.
Barnett was arrested by a Pima County Regional SWAT team at an apartment complex near Broadway Boulevard and North Camino Seco in Tucson, according to multiple news outlets.
The recruit, Carlos Ramirez, 23, was found dead on Aug. 19 inside his home that he shared with his fiancée, also 23. The Pima County corrections officer was hospitalized after the shooting, the Sheriff's Department said.
The PIma County Sheriff's Department had posted an advisory on social media at around 8 p.m. warning community members to stay away from the area where the complex was located.
Newly released arrest documents also provided new details about the shooting that killed Tucson police recruit Carlos Ramirez, including evidence investigators said linked a suspect to the case and a firsthand account from Ramirez's wounded fiancée.
The documents were filed after the arrest of Santiago Jorge Rogers, 39, and also reveal investigators identified a second suspect whose involvement remains under investigation.
Rogers was arrested Aug. 22 at a Tucson hotel by the Pima Regional SWAT Team and the Pima County Sheriff's Department Fugitive Investigations Unit, with assistance from the FBI.
Rogers was being held without bond.
Investigators described the crime as "random and dangerous" and said the request was made to protect the surviving victim and the public, according to court documents.
What is known about Alex Barnett?
Barnett had an active arrest warrant for first-degree murder, the Sheriff's Department said.
He was described as "bald with distinctive arm tattoos" and was last seen wearing a "red shirt and leather vest, riding a maroon 2020 Harley-Davidson FLHXS motorcycle," according to a public safety alert release on Aug. 20.
In the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry system, he is further described as 6-foot-2 with brown eyes and weighing 277 pounds.
He has been in and out of prison four times for 12 offenses since 2012, state prison documents showed.
Suspects purchased hats and gloves before shooting
Nearly 40 minutes before the shooting on Aug. 19, two men were seen on surveillance footage entering a Shell station on Valencia Road near Casino del Sol, documents said.
The footage and store transaction history showed the men paid in cash for three hats described as two red Boston hats with a black bill and one gray San Diego Padres hat. Two sets of dark gray gloves were also purchased, according to court documents.
Tohono O’Odham Police Department helped identify Rogers in the surveillance footage, documents said.
Documents detail Ramirez's final moments
Ramirez, 23, lived with his fiancée and had two young children, with one on the way, according to an Erik Hite Foundation fundraiser for the family.
Sheriff deputies responded to a shooting inside the home south of Camino Verde and Valencia Road before 6 a.m. Aug. 19. A neighbor’s surveillance video showed a car previously identified as being used in the shooting parked near the home sometime around 4 a.m., documents said.
The fiancée, also 23, who has not been publicly identified, was shot in her left shoulder, according to documents.
She told investigators she heard banging outside of their bedroom. Ramirez came into the room yelling for her to get a gun from the safe and that “2 masked men were outside the bedroom,” documents said.
The fiancée described the men as wearing dark clothing with “balaclava style” masks and tattoos on their arms.
Ramirez fought the two men inside the home before the gunshots went off. Deputies found him dead in a bedroom “with a gunshot wound to his chest,” documents said.
Rogers has criminal history, records show
In February 2026, a Pima County grand jury charged Rogers with several counts, according to court records.
He was accused of two counts of aggravated assault. Documents stated he caused temporary but substantial disfigurement and fractures to an unknown person’s skull and clavicle.
He was also charged with two counts of vehicle theft and one count of aggravated robbery, according to documents. The arrest in that case was made by Tohono O’Odham police.
Rogers has been in and out of prison dating back to 2007 all over the state. Records for the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry showed he had been in prison in Pima, Yavapai, Graham and Navajo counties.
Throughout his time in prison, he received 14 disciplinary infractions, including possessing a phone, tampering with security devices, promoting prison contraband and assault on an inmate, among other infractions, records showed.
He was released in May 2023, according to the corrections department.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Suspect in Tucson police recruit killing taken into custody
