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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Sept. 5, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — Dozens of heavily armed police officers descended on the Rio Grande area Wednesday afternoon after reports of shots fired during a foot chase involving Salt Lake City Police officers and a man wanted on one or more felony gun warrants.
The incident happened in the area of 400 South and 400 West, near the northwest corner of Pioneer Park, shortly after 4 p.m.
“This afternoon, some of our officers attempted to stop a white male adult, age 35,” SLCPD Detective Robert Ungricht told reporters at the scene. “He was wanted on a felony 3 warrant for a weapon violation.
“That individual fled from our officers, our officers chased after him. He did run into a building in the area here, in the Rio Grande neighborhood. Our officers did set up containment on a building. As we went into the building to search for that suspect, we found the male deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot.”
Ungricht said he had no information on shots fired during the foot chase. The suspect was found dead within 30 to 40 minutes of fleeing into the building.
“There is no longer a threat to the public,” the detective said. “This individual is deceased.”
Ungricht said officers are always on high alert when a suspect enters a building, possibly putting others inside in danger.
“That becomes a very big concern for us in law enforcement,” he said. “Obviously we’ve got a threat to the public when we have someone potentially armed with a weapon that does enter a building when they are fleeing from officers.”
Ungricht said he had no information on how many people may have been in the building, but said he did know that no one was hurt.
The name of the dead man is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, a tweet from the SLCPD said.
