{"id":1026257,"date":"2026-08-26T23:28:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1026257\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T23:28:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T23:28:17","slug":"phoenix-officer-ambush-shooter-waives-jury-hearing-faces-decades-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1026257\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix officer ambush shooter waives jury hearing, faces decades in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 The man convicted of shooting Phoenix Officer Tyler Moldovan eight times has waived a jury hearing on factors that make his punishment harsher.<\/p>\n

A Maricopa County Superior Court spokesperson said Wednesday that Essa Williams waived his right to the aggravation phase of the case. <\/p>\n

By waiving the aggravation phase, he avoids a separate jury hearing on factors that could increase his prison sentence. Those factors are now considered proven for sentencing purposes.<\/p>\n

Williams faces decades in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

Williams was convicted earlier this month<\/a> of shooting Moldovan in 2021, including once in the head. Court officials said the jury deliberated for less than an hour.<\/p>\n

Conviction stems from 2021 shooting<\/p>\n

On Dec. 14, 2021, nine months into the job, rookie Officer Tyler Moldovan<\/a> and his partner, Officer Zach Johnson, responded to a call about cars doing donuts near 19th Avenue and Camelback Road. Williams shot Moldovan<\/a> eight times during that response. <\/p>\n

\"EssaEssa Williams is accused of shooting Phoenix police officer Tyler Moldovan eight times in Dec. 2021.(Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office\/Phoenix Police Department)<\/p>\n

Williams was also planning to shoot Johnson before Johnson tackled him and took him into custody.<\/p>\n

Moldovan was given little chance to live, but miraculously survived. He spent months in the hospital, undergoing extensive rehabilitation. <\/p>\n

During the trial, Moldovan described the injuries<\/a> he sustained from the violent encounter. He told the courtroom he had multiple gunshot wounds, including two to his head \u2014 one to the right side behind the ear and one to the left side behind the ear \u2014 as well as injuries to his shoulder, thumb, wrist, hip and legs. He said the head wounds caused brain stem injuries.<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 The man convicted of shooting Phoenix Officer Tyler Moldovan eight times has waived a jury…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1026258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,4219,410530,379457,50,1589,7183,410531,410532,101,410528,410529,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1026257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-azfamily","tag-crime","tag-essa-williams","tag-essa-williams-trial","tag-news","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-news","tag-phoenix-police-officer-shooting","tag-phoenix-police-shooting-trial","tag-shooting","tag-tyler-moldovan","tag-tyler-moldovan-shooting-trial","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117164409354059109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1026258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}