Original Article Police kill man, free hostage Elias C. Arnold The Arizona Republic Apr. 24, 2006 12:00 AM A man died and his hostage was injured early Sunday morning when police shot and killed him after he led them on a chase across the Valley in a Krispy Kreme delivery truck. The unidentified man, believed to be in his 20s, was holding a gun to the head of a 76-year-old man when a police officer shot him in the back of the head as he left a Safeway store northeast of Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard, said Sgt. Mark Clark, a spokesman for Scottsdale police. The man forced his way into the closed store and took Patrick Corbett, a night deli worker, hostage about 1 a.m., shortly after police disabled the delivery truck and cornered him in the shopping center lot, Clark said. Corbett is in stable condition at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn after suffering a neck injury when metal fragments of bullets used by police hit him, Clark said. "It could have ended a lot worse," Clark said. The chase started in the 8800 block of West Thunderbird Road when a Peoria police officer confronted the man for driving a stolen vehicle, said Mike Tellef, a spokesman for Peoria police. The man pointed a gun at the officer and ran into a nearby convenience store, Tellef said. He then left the store and forced two Krispy Kreme employees at gunpoint out of a large delivery truck when customers and employees failed to meet his demands for a vehicle, he said. Police followed the truck east on Thunderbird Road and north onto Loop 101 until it exited at Chaparral Road in Scottsdale, Tellef said. Tire-deflation devices flattened three of the truck's four tires after it turned north on Scottsdale Road, forcing the man to turn into the shopping center, Clark said. Hundreds of patrons at a nearby bar fled back into the bar or through the shopping center parking lot as the man ran around the area for several minutes, waving a gun and ignoring police orders, Clark said, describing the scene as "chaotic." This is the third officer-involved shooting for the Scottsdale Police Department in less than a year. In October, police shot and killed a pipe-wielding burglary suspect after he ignored orders to drop the pipe; five weeks earlier, police shot and killed a 26-year-old man outside a probation office at Hayden and Osborn roads.