Salt Lake City police didn’t do anything deserving of criminal charges in the case of a man who died after he was taken into custody outside a hardware store in May, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has decided.
In fact, Gill said in a ruling issued Tuesday, police apparently didn’t do anything at all that led to the death of Mischa Ryan Cox.
Cox, 30, was tackled on May 2 by employees and customers of the Ace Hardware at 612 E. 400 South in Salt Lake City, police reported. Cox, who had been accused of shoplifting from the store, was unconscious on the asphalt of the store’s parking lot when Salt Lake City police officers arrived, 8 minutes after receiving a 911 call.
Police handcuffed Cox, then spent 2 1/2 minutes performing CPR before paramedics took over. Cox was hospitalized, and his death was announced by police on May 7. The officers’ actions were recorded by body cameras, and the footage was released on May 17.
None of the employees or customers who tackled Cox were charged, a Salt Lake City police spokesman said Tuesday.
In a letter to Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown and Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera — whose Unified Police took over the investigation — Gill wrote that his office was “unsure whether this incident meets the statutory and Officer-Involved Critical Incident (OICI) protocol’s definition of an in-custody death.”
Gill wrote that officers arrived “after he sustained his life-threatening injuries,” and there was no evidence that any officers “did anything related to Mr. Cox’s death.” The DA’s office reviewed the case “out of an abundance of caution,” and Gill praised Salt Lake City police for invoking the protocol and bringing in Unified Police to investigate.
