A 38-year-old Herriman man died Sunday after he fired a rifle at policer officers, who returned fire and killed him.
At about 3:45 p.m., the man, later identified as Alma Worthington, called police and said he was thinking of harming himself. Police also received a report of gunshots at a home near 13000 South and 5100 West.
According to Herriman police, the man was experiencing a mental health crisis, and he fired a rifle multiple times inside his home.
“The subject threatened to shoot anyone who came to his residence,” police said in a news release Monday evening. “Officers met with the subject’s family members at a location away from the residence and contacted him by phone, attempting to provide him with resources and options.”
In the meantime, police issued a shelter in place order for nearby residents and continued to try and convince the man to put down the rifle, come out of the home and surrender, authorities said.
According to the Herriman Police Department, SWAT team members “showed restraint in an effort to reach a peaceful resolution.” But at about 9:15 p.m., as police were trying to evacuate people from nearby residences, Worthington “broke windows out of his residence and fired” at officers “multiple times,” police said.
SWAT team members returned fire, killing the man, police said. No officers or evacuees were injured.
“While this is not the outcome we had hoped for, Mr. Worthington was adamant throughout our encounter with him that this was the outcome he had decided upon,” Herriman police said in the news release. “We have and will continue to make every effort to avoid armed confrontation with suicidal subjects and provide them resources and options for a path forward, but we cannot allow that person to place the lives of other citizens in danger through their actions.”
Police late Monday acknowledged that the shelter in place order authorities issued reached more people than intended, and apologized to those outside the affected area “for any inconvenience or confusion caused by the alert.”
Sunday’s shooting marked the 17th police shooting in Utah so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
