SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 11, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A Salt Lake City police officer was “unjustified” when he shot and critically injured an autistic teen having mental health crisis but won’t be prosecuted for the September 2020 shooting.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill on Friday said the Sept. 4, 2020, shooting of Linden Cameron, then 13 and having a mental health crisis, “was an unjustified use of deadly force.”
“The use of force by [the police officer] against an unarmed, 13-year-old child suffering a mental health crisis, on a subjective fear that was unreasonable given the facts of this incident, is an ‘anticipatory shooting’ that cannot be condoned …,” Gill writes in a summary of his office’s findings.
“However, in spite of the unjustified use of force, in applying the current law, the burden of proof required for a criminal prosecution, and the ethical safeguards upon the prosecution, we are unable to proceed with a criminal prosecution.”
Salt Lake City police were called to a house near 500 South and Navajo Street by the boy’s mother, who requested a member of the department’s crisis intervention team with specialized training for those having a mental health crisis.
When officers knocked on the door, the boy fled out a side door and into the backyard, the AG’s report says. Officers then chased the boy, who jumped a back fence and began running down a dirt alleyway.
“After [the boy] exited the alleyway and turned, the closest pursuing officer … also exited the alleyway and turned in [the boy’s] direction,” the report says.
“Following a brief confrontation … [the officer] fired his handgun at [the boy], who fell to the ground. As a result of the incident, [the boy] sustained multiple gunshot wounds resulting in serious bodily injury.”
Gill’s investigation determined the use of deadly force was “neither necessary nor reasonable, and therefore unjustified.”
The boy’s parents later filed a lawsuit against the Salt Lake City Police Department, alleging the teen was shot while unarmed and having committed no crime.
