Springville police shot and killed a man in a Walmart parking lot early Saturday after officers said he rammed a police vehicle and threatened an officer with a knife.
Lt. Warren Foster at a news conference Monday identified the man killed as Jonathan Hambleton, but said authorities did not have more information on Hambleton’s age or where he was from.
Foster did note that police knew Hambleton was not from Springville.
Response began with anonymous 911 call
On Friday at 10:58 p.m., police dispatch first received an anonymous 911 call from a man who said someone was shooting a gun into the air, then hung up, Foster said. The dispatcher immediately called the number back, but didn’t get an answer.
On a second callback, the man answered, saying, “I can’t talk. There’s a man shooting at the Walmart,” Foster quoted him as saying. The man then hung up again.
The dispatcher was able to “ping” the caller’s phone and see that it was near the city’s only Walmart, which sits just east of Interstate 15. Police then rushed to the store, Foster said.
When the first arriving officer pulled up and came to a stop near the store’s east entrance, a vehicle crashed into the back of his cruiser, Foster said.
Hambleton then got out of the vehicle and ran up to the officer’s door, Foster said. When the officer got out of his cruiser, Hambleton was “feet away from him” with a knife, and coming toward him, Foster continued.
The officer shot multiple times at Hambleton, who went down, Foster said. Other officers at the scene tried to perform life-saving measures, as did paramedics with Springville Fire and Rescue, but Hambleton died at the scene.
Later, officers were unable to find any evidence that a gun was actually fired in the area before they arrived, police said.
Man killed placed the 911 call, police say
On Monday, Foster said that the anonymous 911 call they received had come from Hambleton’s phone. Police believe he made the call himself.
“For what reason, I don’t know — I don’t know what his intentions were,” Foster said. “ ... Unfortunately, we may never get that information.”
During the investigation, the lieutenant said officers will talk to Hambleton’s friends and family to hopefully find some answers. Hambleton was married and had four children, Foster said.
“We do want to express our condolences to the family, and to what they’re going to have to go through as a result of this incident,” he said. “It is a very tragic scenario not only for the family, but for our police department.”
“This has been a very difficult few weeks for our department, but we will get through this,” Foster continued.
Police shooting followed several ‘hard’ events recently
When reached later for clarification, Foster said “it’s just been one event after another” for the Springville Police Department in the past month or so, citing the following events:
On May 18, two teens — Lily Conroy and her ex-boyfriend — died in what police later determined to be a murder-suicide.
On May 21, 42-year-old Gregory Shaffer was shot and killed on his front porch. The man’s former neighbor was arrested as a suspect.
On May 26, Springville police found 75-year-old Michael Huff dead from a gunshot wound to the head. His 33-year-old stepdaughter was arrested as a suspect.
“We’re a pretty close department, and we talk and we get through them. And we have to move on to the next call,” Foster said. “As hard as that is, we have to finish one up and do what we have to do with that one, and then you continue moving forward. That’s all you can do.”
The police shooting at the Walmart remains under investigation by the Utah County Officer-Involved Critical Incident Team.
Saturday’s shooting marked the seventh police shooting in Utah so far this year. The last police shooting in Utah to date was in Orem on May 28, involving Orem police. The man shot survived, and was charged with attempted murder.
