CENTERVILLE, Utah, July 4, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — A man who died in an officer-involved shooting Tuesday morning on Legacy Parkway has been identified.
Cody Ray McCray, 32, of West Bountiful, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, Centerville City Police said Tuesday afternoon.
Centerville City Police Chief Paul Child said no officers were injured in the incident.
Police had been looking for McCray several for hours after it was learned he had stolen a car was considering suicide by cop. They were especially concerned he might target crowds at 4th of July parades in Centerville or West Bountiful.
“This morning at about 2:30 a.m., West Bountiful Police took a report of a vehicle that had been stolen from their city,” Child said. “The vehicle was spotted by Bountiful officers, a short chase was attempted and terminated. It was spotted again by a Davis County Sheriff’s deputy and was terminated after a short chase. Subsequent to that throughout the morning it had been spotted numerous times, and the decision was made by officers to not pursue, to just monitor, so that’s what was going on for a couple of hours, for a few hours.”
The vehicle was then spotted taking the exit at Legacy going eastbound on Parrish Lane, at approximately 9:15 a.m.
“At that time we had the Fourth of July parade and celebration going on in Centerville, on Main Street, so our Main Street was lined with thousands of people in Centerville,” Child said. “West Bountiful had a parade that was getting ready to start, and so thousands of people were gathering in West Bountiful, kids, people. The report that we had was that the individual driving this car was suicidal, that he wanted to go out by suicide by cop.”
Child clarified that at some point during the incident police had contact with someone who knew the man and that person said he was suicidal.
“That leads us to think that he’s unstable,” he said. “We were very concerned about him getting into our parade areas, where we had lots of people, so we were doing everything we could to take a defensive posture on it and keep him from getting into our parade areas.”
The police chief added the suspect got close to the parade in Centerville and was turned back by officers.
“At that time we weren’t involved in a chase, it was just try to keep him away,” he added. “I know that he was in the West Bountiful area in areas where their parade was probably getting ready to start, and so there was a very high concern by both police departments about this individual being in the vicinity of these parades.”
Child said the suspect was going westbound on Parrish Lane and got onto Legacy Highway going northbound. Officers used spike strips and multiple PIT maneuvers to stop the suspect vehicle, a red Sedan.
“He then turned around and started going southbound in the northbound lanes,” Child said. “At that point he went head on into one of our patrol cars, and then another patrol car was able to ram him again and knock him off the road to protect lives along Legacy Highway.
“Once he was disabled and in the center median, as officers were dealing with the situation there, an officer-involved shooting occurred, and the subject was hit, and he is deceased,” Child added.
He added several officers were shaken up by the incident. “It was a very scary thing for quite some time,” he said. “Subsequent to the accident too we had a grass fire, the grass here started on fire around the police car and the suspect car.”
Centerville Police Department was joined by Utah Highway Patrol, West Bountiful Police Department, Davis County Sheriff’s Office and Bountiful Police in dealing with the incident.
Child said his information is that a Utah Highway Patrol trooper was the officer who was involved in the shooting.
Legacy Parkway is closed between Parrish Lane in Centerville and Glover Lane in Farmington, officials said. The road reopened early Tuesday evening.
Gephardt Daily will have more on this developing story as information becomes available.
If he was disabled in the medium there is no indication on your report that he had a weapon so why was there deadly force used in this situation. You had he stop and he wasn’t going anywhere so why shoot him that is wrong you could had a better out come if you didn’t have a officer that was fun happy that he wanted to shoot someone this is why we don’t feel safe here anymore
Unfortunately this is just one more life taken because a police officer decided it was easier to kill than to put thought into a better solution. The level of disgust and sorrow I feel whenever this happens is immeasurable. Isn’t the primary duty of the police officer to protect us from harm, one of the ultimate dangers being death? Something in our society is very wrong. And not one of these officers are held accountable for their misuse of power and gross misjudgment. It’s clear to me when an officer is hurt or is killed while on duty how far off our values are. When did police officer’s lives become more valuable than a normal citizen’s? We are so blind to the injustices done to ‘criminals’ in the name of public safety. All of the ‘crimes’ are acceptable when committed by law enforcement. Theft, lying, deception, violation of privacy, murder, etc are all common tactics used by the law, under the guise of catching the ‘bad guy’. And who is this bad guy? Someone suffering because he doesn’t know how to cope with difficult emotions, an innocent teenager, a responsible man on his own property refusing to be hassled,or a drug user. How are the most serious and harmful crimes overlooked and even rewarded while innocent and most of the time ostracized people who belong to stigmatized groups are the people who are punished and who get blamed for all of society’s troubles? It seems to me the labels we have been programmed to believe are getting awfully blurry.
It seems to me that you are very quick to judge. Especially if you are making your conclusions based on this article. Logic would lead me to think that as McCray’s intent was to commit suicide by cop, that he would have something that resembled a weapon.
I do not believe this man’s plan was to be taken to jail.
I support our men in blue and it is probable that the officer who shot this man believed that his life was in danger.
That is the only thing that makes logical sense to me. Let’s look at what we know based on this article:
1. we know that someone McCray knew said that McCray was suicidal
2. We know that he stole a car and was driving erratically.
3. We know that it was believed that he wanted to “go out by cop”
4. We know that he was stopped on the Legacy Parkway with no way out.
5. We can logically conclude that he did not intend to go to jail
6. We know that there was a grass fire.
Based on the things we know, logically there is no way to conclude that this shooting was not justified. Again, logically it is probable that McCray would have performed some action of aggression to ensure that he would be killed. Those of you who are judging, do you know what really happened in those moments? Do you think that McCray went through all of this without an end plan? Why wouldn’t he have threatened the officers in a meaningful way if he wanted to die? Do you know that he didn’t? Let’s take a minute to examine the real problem here– Mental Health. I am sad that McCray struggled with mental health. I wish that he could’ve received meaningful help prior to July 4, 2017. On that day, he endangered many lives and it is easy to stand here and judge the officer. But let’s think through this logically and not with judgement and anger.