

If his self-reported record of wounds suffered on the job is any indication, there hasn’t been much hesitation on the part of Phoenix Jones since then. When I hear gunshots go off, I remember that I can’t let fear keep me from moving forward.” “It was one of those experiences where I told myself, ‘It’s not your fault that she got shot, but it’s your fault that we didn’t catch the guy who shot her.’ It’s one of those things that I think about a lot. “We were right there, and we just watched her die in the road,” Fodor says. The victim, meanwhile, lay bleeding on the ground. As he spoke with officers, the gunman escaped. Still, as he constantly reminds himself now, “There was a moment of hesitation.” He was scared to chase a gunman around a corner, for obvious reasons, and he hesitated further when police arrived and ordered him to wait as they called for backup. As Phoenix Jones, clad in a mask and rubber superhero suit, Fodor gave chase. “I started pursuit, and saw what looked like a man with a cellphone pressed to his ear.”Īs Fodor later learned, what he saw was actually a 21-year-old woman clasping her hand over a gunshot wound as a gunman ran from the scene.

“We were in Pioneer Square, and we heard gunshots,” Fodor, 26, tells USA TODAY Sports.

This was three years ago, and he wasn’t acting as Ben Fodor at the time, but rather as his superhero alter ego “Phoenix Jones,” the masked crimefighter who’s been patrolling Seattle since 2010, courting controversy and danger.
Phoenix jones fights professional#
(This story first appeared in today’s USA TODAY.)īen Fodor doesn’t dwell much on his six professional MMA fights or the dozen or so he had as an amateur, but his mind often returns to the night he watched a woman die on the streets of Seattle.
