Tooele police officers shot a man while responding to a report of domestic violence early Wednesday.
At about 4 a.m., police received a call from a woman who said her husband — who was “intoxicated and armed with a firearm” — had left their home, according to Tooele Police Lt. Jeremy Hansen.
“Before officers arrived, the wife called back in and said her husband had returned home and she didn’t want the officers to respond anymore,” Hansen said.
However, the woman called 911 again at 5 a.m., reporting that her husband was “threatening to shoot officers,” Hansen said. “And the dispatcher could hear the wife screaming for her husband to get off of her.”
When officers arrived, they confronted the 49-year-old man in the home’s garage. “He fired one one round and we believe one of our officers fired twice,” Hansen said.
Originally, police said the suspect shot at them and they returned fire. A review of body camera footage showed the suspect aiming a gun at the officers, police said, and one of the officers fired his gun twice. The suspect then fired his gun once.
The man was hit in the torso. He was flown by helicopter to a hospital in critical but stable condition, Hansen said. The officers were not injured, and neither were the suspect’s wife or his 17-year-old son, who was also in the house.
The shooting remains under investigation. The two officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave.
It was the second police shooting in Utah in 2022. There were 31 police shootings in the state in 2021, breaking a record set in 2018 and matched in 2020, according to records maintained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
