Salt Lake County D.A. won’t charge officers who killed combat vet, citing ‘overwhelming evidence’

Salt Lake County prosecutors will not charge the Salt Lake City officers who killed a 38-year-old combat veteran in a March 2022 shootout after he carjacked someone’s vehicle and fired a shot on Interstate 15, the district attorney’s office announced Friday.

District Attorney Sim Gill also determined the shooting was legally justified, he wrote in a findings letter sent this week to Salt Lake City police Chief Mike Brown and West Valley City police Chief Colleen Jacobs, whose department investigated the shooting. Gill released the letter at a Friday news conference.

Gill wrote his decision was “supported by overwhelming evidence that when the officers got out of their vehicles and commanded him to show his hands, Mr. [Matthew] Cieslak presented a firearm and immediately started firing at them out the open front driver window of the Hyundai Sonata.”

Utah law states an officer’s deadly use of force is justified if they believe the force was necessary to save their life or someone else’s.

“This is a tragic case that represents the need for more comprehensive and ongoing mental health resources and support for our military service members,” Brown said in a statement Friday. “My deepest condolences go out to Mr. Cieslak’s family.”

The 2022 shootout unfolded shortly after Salt Lake City dispatchers received multiple 911 calls about a man with a gun on the 600 South offramp of I-15 around 5:45 p.m. on March 26.

At the news conference, Gill showed a witness’s cellphone video, which showed Cieslak confront the Hyundai’s driver and passenger on the interstate as other drivers stopped and tried to change directions.

Cieslak points a gun at the Hyundai’s driver, and the driver throws Cieslak the keys. Cieslak then drove the stolen car down the exit ramp.

Officers Dale Nicholas and Jesus Rivera were nearby and spotted the carjacked Hyundai driving north on 400 West. Cieslak was speeding and weaving the vehicle through traffic. The officers decided to follow, with Cieslak eventually driving through a locked chain-link fence onto Dominion Energy property. He kept driving on a dirt road, then turned on to an embankment, where the car became high-centered.

As the officers exited their car, they yelled for Cieslak to show his hands, and shots rang out, body camera footage shows.

Nicholas told investigators that he saw Cieslak point a gun and start firing as soon as Nicholas got out of the patrol car.

“I heard the first round. I didn’t hear any after that because I realized we were right up on what we call the ‘X’ or the ‘kill zone.’ We didn’t have cover...,” Nicholas said. “So I started firing and just firing right at the vehicle and at him to get enough superiority to get back to cover.”

Nicholas said it seemed that Cieslak was “highly trained” because of his approach to the gunfight.

“When the guy was utilizing cover in the car like he was, only coming up and presenting a target when he was shooting ... that’s not normal,” Nicholas said. “People come out the driver door. He crawled out the passenger side and took cover, and this guy is trained, he knows what he is doing, and he is a serious threat to us.”

Cieslak went down after 43 seconds and several volleys of gunfire. Nicholas fired more than 50 rounds, Gill wrote, and Rivera fired at least 26. Cieslak fired at least eight rounds.

Neither officer, nor the initial carjacking victim, was injured. Cieslak died at the scene.

The carjacking victim had told a 911 dispatcher, according to call audio, that he was “definitely shaken up.”

“That was the first time having a gun pointed at my face,” he said. “I thought he was going to shoot me.”

Brown said in his statement that the police shooting “underscores the importance of the training our officers receive throughout their careers.” He called it a “lifeline.”

“Our officers faced an incredible and immediate danger, yet they did everything they could to protect not only themselves, but our entire community, and I am proud of them,” he continued. “The loss of life is always tragic.”

A GoFundMe page set up for Cieslak’s wife and children stated he was a military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cieslak was a special operations combat medic for 17 years and served a tour of duty in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, according to the page.

“This world lost a hero,” the fundraising page reads. “This larger-than-life war veteran tragically died this week due to the effects of PTSD.”

Though prosecutors considered the case a relatively straightforward legal decision, Gill became emotional at points during the Friday news conference, and said the case was a tragedy for Cieslak and his family, as well as the shooting officers and the community.

He added that veterans have heightened rate of suicide compared to other adults, and that one tour of duty increases one’s chances of developing PTSD. Cieslak was deployed four times. He lived in Idaho but was in Salt Lake City that day in March for mental health treatment. Gill called this shooting an “indirect result” of Cieslak’s trauma.

“It is really important to put it into that context, because we sometimes forget what our veterans continue to suffer from and what we need to do as a community to do more,” Gill said, “because it ends in this kind of loss of life.”

Gill directed anyone who is struggling with mental health to call the 988 crisis line.

This shooting marked the fourth in Utah in 2022, according to a database maintained by The Salt Lake Tribune.