PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A former Arizona Cardinals player and his daughter were forced to the ground and handcuffed at gunpoint by a swarm of officers at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport earlier this month.
Police had thought 53-year-old Wesley Leasy might be involved in a reported homicide, but it turns out he had nothing to do with it.
Leasy had gone to the airport to pick up his daughter, who was flying in from Atlanta. “You hear about these things going wrong all the time,” said Leasy. “Officers pull someone over, they’re innocent, they make a false move, my daughter was frantic on the ground, crying.”
Mesa police body camera video shows officers jumping into action to apprehend the former linebacker outside Terminal 3 on April 10. Arizona’s Family sat down with Leasy to find out what happened. He said he was completely blindsided.
One moment, he’s helping his daughter with her luggage and the next, he’s in handcuffs being treated like a criminal. “I’m an ex-Cardinals player, I ran for office. I have a construction company,” said Leasy. “This shouldn’t be happening to me.”
Wesley Leasy was mistakenly detained on April 10.(Arizona’s Family)
“It’s sad that in this day and time, a citizen, taxpaying person who has never done anything wrong, that this could happen to anyone,” said Leasy.
Arizona’s Family reached out to the Mesa Police Department and was told the sudden stop of Leasy was directly related to a shooting that had just taken place in the East Valley. The suspect’s vehicle was described as a white Mercedes, which was spotted by a police chopper headed toward the airport.
Leasy was also driving a white Mercedes. When officers saw Leasy’s vehicle circling Sky Harbor, they followed him and then moved in.
At the time, Mesa police reported officers did have a description of the shooter. “We’re just dotting our I’s, crossing our T’s, because we had a homicide. OK, that’s why we responded the way we did,” an officer told Leasy on the scene.
Attorney Ben Taylor thinks police should have gotten more information before going after Leasy. “They should have looked and used common sense and better judgment here,” said Taylor. “Because you are putting people’s lives in danger and embarrassing them and traumatizing them for the rest of their lives.”
Mesa police insist they were just doing their job, following a lead on an armed and dangerous suspect headed toward the airport, and once they realized Leasy wasn’t their guy, they let him go and apologized. “We apologize,” and officer told Leasy, after his handcuffs were removed. “That’s not how you want to get picked up from the airport.”
According to the body-cam video, Leasy was detained for approximately five minutes.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Copyright 2025 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.