SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Feb. 29, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — The ACLU of Utah on Monday released a statement regarding Saturday’s officer-involved shooting of a teenage boy, asking Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski and interim Salt Lake City Police Department chief Mike Brown to investigate the incident swiftly and fairly.
The American Civil Liberties Union identified the teen as Abdi Muhamed. The Salt Lake City Police Department had declined to identify the victim because of his juvenile status.
“The ACLU of Utah joins Salt Lake City community members – particularly members of the community living in and around the Rio Grande neighborhood of downtown Salt Lake City – in calling for a full investigation of the recent shooting of 17-year-old Abdi Muhamed,” the statement begins.
“We urge Mayor Jackie Biskupski and interim Police Chief Mike Brown to act swiftly, openly, and objectively in gathering all of the facts behind this most recent officer-involved incident. We hope that Abdi and his family will be treated fairly and compassionately as all the facts of this incident are sorted out.
“Victims of officer-involved shootings in Utah, unfortunately, are often treated as threats to public safety before any investigation is conducted to verify that assessment. We hope this will not be the case for Abdi Muhamed and his family.”
The incident began at 8 p.m. Saturday near 210 S. Rio Grande, where officers observed tensions between teens who seemed about to fight.
A statement from the SLCPD states that officers told two people to drop their weapons. One did, the report said, but the teen now identified as Abdi did not drop what he was holding, which officers described as a metal object and which witnesses described as part of a broomstick.
Witnesses say as just as Abdi turned to face officers, they fired shots that struck the teen. Outraged bystanders began throwing rocks and bottles at the officers, a point both sides agree on. About 100 officers from multiple agencies responded to the officer-needs-help call. Some of them carried riot shields as they secured the scene.
“While the ACLU of Utah condemns violence and encourages peaceful demonstrations against government actions, we understand why community members felt anger in response to the shooting of Abdi Muhamed. That there would be brief unrest in response to such an incident was fairly predictable.
“Too many individuals have been hurt or killed in recent years by Salt Lake City police officers, as well as by law enforcement in other Utah jurisdictions,” the ACLU statement continued.
“It is completely appropriate to demand that our government representatives ─ especially those who are armed and given vast discretion in dealing with the public ─ act with the utmost care and responsibility, even when they feel threatened. We also rightly expect law enforcement leaders to react to these incidents in a proactive, non-defensive manner that ensures objectivity and fairness to all involved.”
Read the entire ACLU statement at the end of this article.
The statement came hours after Brown called reporters to what he called a roundtable on the topic of the incident.
Brown said he wanted journalists to understand that although he was proud of his officers, every police department has room for improvement, and he was working with other agencies to come up with a plan for further education about how to de-escalate volatile situation.
What Brown declined to discuss was any details of the case related to the Saturday night incident. Brown did confirm that as of Monday, the boy remained hospitalized in critical condition.
“As we come together as a police department and community we can forge changes, whatever we need to do to make this police department better,” Brown said.
“Make no mistake, this is a great police department, but we could make it better. We will become better through this extreme tragedy.”
Brown mentioned plans to help the homeless in the Rio Grande area get support and counseling from social workers. But many people in the area are criminals, there for no reason but to deal drugs.
“You don’t rehabilitate a dope dealer,” he said, adding that those breaking laws will be treated as criminals.
Brown became emotional when he talked about helping arrange a hospital visit for the teen shooting victim’s mother, who previously had not been allowed to see her badly injured son.
“We wanted to get his mother to the hospital, to be able to see her son,” Brown said. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. To see a mother reach out and hold her son’s hand was touching, to say the least…. When I sat in the hospital with that mother, all I saw was a mother grieving with her son, no race and no color.”
Here’s the full text of the ACLU statement:
The ACLU of Utah joins Salt Lake City community members – particularly members of the community living in and around the Rio Grande neighborhood of downtown Salt Lake City – in calling for a full investigation of the recent shooting of 17-year-old Abdi Muhamed.
We urge Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Interim Police Chief Mike Brown to act swiftly, openly, and objectively in gathering all of the facts behind this most recent officer-involved incident. We hope that Abdi and his family will be treated fairly and compassionately as all the facts of this incident are sorted out.
Victims of officer-involved shootings in Utah, unfortunately, are often treated as threats to public safety before any investigation is conducted to verify that assessment. We hope this will not be the case for Abdi Muhamed and his family.
While the ACLU of Utah condemns violence and encourages peaceful demonstrations against government actions, we understand why community members felt anger in response to the shooting of Abdi Muhamed. That there would be brief unrest in response to such an incident was fairly predictable.
Too many individuals have been hurt or killed in recent years by Salt Lake City police officers, as well as by law enforcement in other Utah jurisdictions. It is completely appropriate to demand that our government representatives – especially those who are armed and given vast discretion in dealing with the public – act with the utmost care and responsibility, even when they feel threatened. We also rightly expect law enforcement leaders to react to these incidents in a proactive, non-defensive manner that ensures objectivity and fairness to all involved.
Under our Constitution, police are only allowed to use that force which is reasonable under the circumstances. In many instances, this will mean no physical force at all. When officers cross the line, there should be transparency and accountability. We believe that when police view themselves as guardians of the communities they serve and not warriors in a never-ending battle against crime, incidents like this will become less common.
The public also has a right to know what happened in a critical incident like this one. Friends, family, and neighbors of a person who is shot by police deserve the full story, and all residents of Salt Lake City deserve to know how police, who act in their name, came to use force against Abdi Muhamed.
If the SLCPD finds the shooting justified, the public deserves to know exactly why, so we can understand whether the policies on use of force match the public’s expectations and whether the process for investigation and accountability is working. If the SLCDC finds the shooting not justified, the public deserves to know how the SLCPD will ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
Utah has seen many people killed at the hands of law enforcement in the past several years, including Dillon Taylor, Darrien Hunt, James Barker, Danielle Willard, Corey Kanosh, Ty Worthington, Joey Tucker, Todd Blair, Troy Burkinshaw, Jeff Nielson, Brian Wood, and more. Their deaths have placed the issue of law enforcement use of force in the spotlight, again and again highlighting the continuing need for meaningful action to encourage de-escalation and to constrain use of deadly force in our neighborhoods.
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The ACLU of Utah proactively works to ensure police practices remain constitutional by advocating for increased police accountability and educating the public about its rights with law enforcement.
