Man accused of shooting 2 Phoenix officers avoided full consequences of prior arrests
Dropped charges, suspended sentences, early releases allowed Saul Bal to remain free
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Arizona’s Family Investigates has obtained four mug shots, showing Saul Bal in custody at various times. But there are dozens more from jurisdictions in Arizona, California and New Mexico.
Bal was arrested and charged over 40 times in the past 17 years, but appears to have avoided the full force of the law on multiple occasions. Three of those examples occurred in the past two years.
On May 4, 2023, Phoenix Police booked Bal into the Maricopa County Jail on two felony charges of drug possession and one misdemeanor trespassing charge.
The release questionnaire states that Bal was trespassing at a convenience store. Officers stated they found a white crystalline powder in his possession, as well as 21 pills near him on the ground. The questionnaire, filled out by the arresting officer, states the powder tested positive for methamphetamine. They suspected the pills were fentanyl.
Prosecutors did not immediately file criminal charges. A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office says prosecutors asked police to run drug lab tests on the pills.
On Thursday, and official with the Phoenix Police Department told Arizona’s Family Investigates that police had the lab test results two weeks later, but failed to report those results to the prosecutor’s office.
But police officials also questioned why charges were not filed on the methamphetamine possession.
The result is that no charges were filed against Bal. An official with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office stated that Bal would have been released by the court on his own recognizance whether charges were filed or not.
But it is likely that this case would have resulted in a plea agreement worth more than one year in prison, and that Bal would have been in prison at the time of the police shooting if he was prosecuted.
In November of 2023, Bal pleaded guilty in Albuquerque, New Mexico to charges of burglary of a vehicle. He was sentenced to 18 months behind bars. But that sentence was suspended, despite the fact that court paperwork referred to Bal as a habitual offender and an interstate fugitive.
If Bal had been sent to prison or jail in New Mexico, he would have been behind bars at the time of the shooting in Phoenix.
In April 2024, Bal was sent to prison on charges from Navajo County, Arizona. The charges included possession of drug paraphernalia and shoplifting. He was sentenced to six months in state prison, but Bal only served three months. He was released in July, and made his way back to the streets of Phoenix.
If Bal had served his entire sentence, he would have been in prison until the end of September.
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