Investigators used surveillance, plate-reader and cellphone information before Henry Gonzales pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Porfirio Medina’s death.
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Surveillance video, license plate readers and cellphone location records helped investigators turn a late-night Phoenix homicide with no immediately identified suspect into a manslaughter case that ended with teenager Henry Gonzales receiving a 14-year prison sentence.
The evidence trail became one of the clearest links between the night Porfirio Medina was shot and the prosecution announced nearly a year later. Medina, 45, was found wounded near Seventh Street and Buckeye Road at about 10:45 p.m. on Aug. 21, 2025. He was taken to a hospital and died. Police initially released few details about what had happened before the shooting and said homicide detectives were investigating. Prosecutors later said Medina had been riding a scooter, nearly collided with a vehicle carrying Gonzales and followed that vehicle to the next intersection. When Medina approached the passenger side at a red light, Gonzales lowered the window and fired a single shot, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
In the first public account, Phoenix police did not identify the shooter or describe a traffic confrontation. Officers responding to the intersection found Medina with at least one gunshot wound. Detectives took over and asked the public for information while keeping other details within the investigation. That limited early picture meant several key questions were unanswered publicly: who had fired, why Medina had been near the vehicle and where the vehicle went afterward. The later prosecution account shows detectives were able to develop those answers through records that tracked both the vehicle and people associated with it rather than through an immediate arrest at the scene.
Prosecutors said surveillance video helped investigators identify the vehicle involved in the encounter. License plate reader data provided another way to trace it, while cellphone location information helped investigators connect Gonzales to the case. The county attorney’s office did not specify which cameras captured the relevant footage, how many plate readers contributed information or whose cellphone records were examined. It also did not release a step-by-step investigative timeline. The office said only that the combination of surveillance, license plate readers and cellphone location data helped authorities identify the vehicle and led them to Gonzales as the person who fired the shot.
The investigation had produced a juvenile suspect by early September. A Phoenix Police Department update dated Sept. 3, 2025, said a juvenile male had been identified and referred to the Juvenile Court Center. Arizona’s Family reported that police had arrested a teenage boy in connection with Medina’s death. ABC15 likewise reported that a juvenile had been taken into custody. Those reports came less than two weeks after the killing, a major development from the initial Aug. 22 police advisory that had said only that detectives were investigating. The public record reviewed for this story does not describe whether Gonzales was arrested at a residence or another location as part of the homicide investigation itself.
Once questioned, Gonzales gave investigators information that went beyond identifying him as the shooter, according to prosecutors. The county attorney’s office said he admitted obtaining the handgun illegally several days before Medina was killed, despite knowing he was prohibited from possessing a firearm because he was a minor. Prosecutors also said Gonzales admitted selling the gun after the shooting. He told investigators he did so because he feared he could use it again in another confrontation. Authorities have not publicly identified where the handgun came from or where it went after Gonzales sold it, and the sentencing announcement did not say whether the firearm was eventually recovered.
Those statements were paired with the physical sequence prosecutors attributed to the shooting. Medina had been traveling by scooter when he and the vehicle nearly collided. He followed it to the next intersection and went to the passenger side while the vehicle was stopped for a red light. Gonzales lowered the passenger-side window and fired once, prosecutors said, striking Medina in the chest. The vehicle then left without anyone inside calling 911 or reporting the shooting. Police responding to the scene instead found Medina wounded and arranged for his transport to a hospital. The publicly released accounts do not describe a prolonged fight, additional shots or an exchange of gunfire.
The case later moved from an investigation centered on identifying a shooter to a prosecution resolved through a guilty plea. Gonzales pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which the county attorney’s office classified as a Class 2 dangerous felony. On Aug. 19, 2026, prosecutors announced that he had received a 14-year sentence in the Arizona Department of Corrections. KTAR reported that the teenager initially faced charges that included first-degree murder, second-degree murder, committing a drive-by shooting and possessing a firearm as a minor. Those allegations did not become the final conviction. The public sentencing announcement does not detail the plea negotiations or explain why the manslaughter count became the basis for the final disposition.
There is also an unresolved inconsistency in the public record about Gonzales’ exact age when Medina was killed. Phoenix police described the suspect as 16 in their Sept. 3, 2025, update, and local coverage at the time used the same age. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office later said Gonzales had been 15 when the shooting happened while listing his birth month and year as August 2009. Because the shooting took place Aug. 21, the precise birth date would be necessary to resolve that difference conclusively. The full date was not contained in the materials reviewed. All sources agree on the point that matters legally for the narrative presented publicly: Gonzales was a juvenile at the time.
County Attorney Rachel Mitchell used the sentencing announcement to emphasize how quickly the roadside encounter became irreversible. She said the confrontation left one man dead while sending a teenager to prison for years and said the consequences extended to two families. Her statement came after Gonzales had pleaded guilty, rather than during the period when police were still determining responsibility. No comparable public statement from Gonzales’ defense appears in the official materials reviewed for this report, and the prosecutor’s release does not quote Medina’s relatives. The record therefore gives a detailed account of the investigation and prosecution but a much narrower picture of the families affected by the killing.
The development of the case can be seen in the contrast between the documents issued roughly a year apart. The first police release documented a victim, a location, a time and a homicide investigation with many details still withheld. The later prosecutor’s release supplied the near-collision, the red-light encounter, the single shot, the vehicle’s departure, the digital evidence trail, Gonzales’ admissions about the gun, the manslaughter plea and the 14-year sentence. That later account shows investigators did not depend on one form of evidence alone but used several data sources to narrow their focus after the shooter left the scene.
For now, Gonzales is serving the prison term imposed after his guilty plea. The county attorney’s office has not announced additional prosecutions arising from the other occupants’ presence in the vehicle, and the reviewed public records do not identify those occupants. With the sentencing complete, the investigative tools that led police from an unidentified fleeing vehicle to Gonzales remain one of the most clearly documented parts of how the case was solved.
Author note: Last updated September 28, 2026.