Officer Alicia Hubert remembers having a “fairly normal conversation” with 22-year-old Jacob Emry Mcilveen on the evening of March 29.

She and several other officers were in Mcilveen’s home near 40th Drive and Pinnacle Peak Road. They were responding to a call about a group of roommates attempting to remove him because he was “acting strange and a bit erratic,” Phoenix police spokeswoman Sgt. Mercedes Fortune later said. 

“Aside from him not wanting to come downstairs, there was no glaring indication of what we were walking into,” Hubert said in a Thursday morning interview at Phoenix police headquarters in downtown Phoenix. “None of us were expecting what happened to happen.”

Hubert said she was walking up the stairs when she heard a series of bangs followed by pain from a bullet in her foot. She and Officer Marissa Dowhan jumped off the staircase and landed on the first floor, then Hubert said she tasted copper in her mouth and realized she’d also been shot in the back.

Dowhan and Cmdr. Greg Carnicle were also struck by gunshots during the incident. Carnicle was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Another officer shot Mcilveen, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

‘I never worried that they wouldn’t come for me’

Hubert has only been with the department for a year and a half.

She said during her training the department made it clear that being injured on the job is a very real possibility, but added that it’s hard to imagine it actually happening.

“I don’t think you think it’ll ever happen to you specifically, because I never went into this thinking ‘yeah, I’m going to be shot a year and a half into my career,'” she said.

There were three officers in the house at the time who were not shot who remained inside, as well as officers outside who ran into the home after the shots rang out. Hubert called their actions an example of  “bravery and heroism.”

“The loyalty I think that we have as a family on the department, I never worried that they wouldn’t come for me,” she said. 

She said she “fully believes” Carnicle assisted in saving her life, telling reporters on Thursday that she vividly remembers hearing officers calling his name as she was lying on the ground.

“That broke me out of the ‘I’ve been shot’ and it moved it to ‘other people have also been shot,'” she said. She said she began moving after she saw that Dowhan and Carnicle had been carried out of the house.

Eventually, another officer ran into the house and dragged Hubert toward the back of a police vehicle, where he discovered that the bullet hadn’t gone through her back.

“That was when I knew, ‘okay, it’s just pain, I’m fine, nothing else is happening,'” Hubert said.

Sgt. Mercedes Fortune later said a plate gifted to Hubert from her father was what stopped the bullet that night.

Hubert said she felt “a lot of grief, a lot of shock” once she got to the hospital, but added that support from friends, family and hospital staff was “very helpful.” Hubert suffered bruised lungs and a broken toe, joking at the press conference that she would likely lose her toenail and be entitled to “cheaper pedicures.”

Hubert’s dad: ‘Happy and devastated at the same time’

Both of Hubert’s parents served as Phoenix police officers. Paul Hubert joined his daughter at the Thursday press conference, saying he was “very proud” of her.

He said he watched his daughter go through the training process with people he knew during his 35-year tenure with the department. He still serves as a reserve officer.

Paul got two phone calls, which he described as “one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever had,” on March 29 from friends who told him that his daughter had been shot and was en route to the hospital.

He and his wife, along with Alicia’s mother, immediately drove to the hospital while “expecting the worst” and “hoping for the best,” Paul said. 

On the way to the hospital, they got a third phone call from another friend who said they saw Alicia enter the hospital, and that she was “alive and well.” The friend added that Alicia had winked at him and given him a thumbs-up.

“I knew at that point, she was at least physically going to be okay,” Paul said. He said he “couldn’t have been happier.”

He added, though, that his joy for his daughter’s condition comes with the pain of mourning a fallen officer.

“It was tough for me to reconcile how I can be happy and devastated at the same time,” he said.

Alicia described Carnicle as a “leader” in personality, but also literally as the first to ascend the staircase that night.

“It was an honor to follow him, it was an honor to be one of his officers — I would’ve followed him anywhere,” she said.

Paul said he spent 35 years in the department and was never injured like daughter was less than two years into her career. He said the possibility of a future injury will remain in the back of his mind once she recovers and returns to work, but regardless he was proud his daughter for her eagerness to continue protecting her community.

“I miss work a lot,” she said. “I can’t wait to go back, I love my job, and to me this is just hopefully a time that I can just improve myself as an officer … if anything I want this to make me better than I was before.”

Gratitude for community

 Alicia said the outpouring of love and support from the community has “meant the world” to her as she recovers.

She returned to the neighborhood where the shooting happened and saw flags lining the streets, blue ribbons on the light poles, messages of support written in chalk on the sidewalk and memorials for her slain commander.

“It’s just a good reminder that we are supported and we are helping our community and our community appreciates us,” she said. “You always know that, but to see the amount of support and outreach that we’ve been given, it’s beautiful.”

Sgt. Mercedes Fortune added that Dowhan is “doing great” in her recovery and is currently at a rehabilitation center to work through injuries to her “lower extremities.”

Fortune added that Alicia and Dowhan talk on the phone daily and have a “forever bond” because of the tragedy that unites them.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8529.  Follow her on Twitter @brieannafrank. 

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