SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Sept. 4, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill on Friday cleared three officers who fired their guns in a Feb. 10 incident while responding to an aggravated hostage situation in a Salt Lake City apartment.
Cleared in the case were officers Christopher Jeppson, Hayden Cassidy and Chad Miller.
Gill also became emotional as he thanked officers for their attempt to save a hostage, who was shot in the head, allegedly by boyfriend Michael Tyson Nance, before could be taken into police custody.
Gill said the officers’ use of deadly force was justified because they felt their lives and the lives of others were threatened by Nancy.
Nance faces charges including aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated assault in the death of 34-year-old Thurber. Police say Thurber died on scene before Nance fled the basement apartment.
Nance survived the incident, after allegedly putting his gun up his face, then firing at an angle that did not kill him, but did put an exit hole in his nose. Gill stressed that Nance has not yet been found guilty of the crimes.
Before ending the news conference, Gill said he wanted to make a personal statement:
“I know that around the country and locally, we’re having an important conversation about the use of force and the perception of police conduct in the lives of people of color and specifically African Americans,” Gill said. “And I know that’s a very important conversation that we should be having, and it’s a critical conversation that I believe it’s time has been long overdue.
“But I also want to take a second to point out that there are many incidents and contexts, thousands of those, which are in the context of those situations, like today, where that trauma and that distress was there, and I just want to take a second to point out the conduct of Officer Jeppson.
“Here was a situation where dispatchers did not know the physical location, but they knew there was a crime that was afoot. They narrowed it down to a general area, and the effort that Officer Jeppson demonstrated, the initiative he took to discover where that was, the urgency with which he alerted the officers, (before he) came down there and tried to assist somebody.”
Gill paused and shook his head from side to side.
“Some incredible circumstances,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “And I know that his efforts fell short (a reference to Thurber’s death), but it was not because he wasn’t trying.
“I think that needs to be remembered. That was the effort of professionalism that I just wanted to acknowledge. And I know that all the responding officers in this particular situation did their very level best to come to the assistance of a victim. And I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the great effort of Officer Jeppson.”
