FARMINGTON, Utah, March 9, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Farmington Police Chief Eric Johnsen held a news conference Wednesday to screen and narrate police bodycam video of events leading up to the officer-involved shooting death of Chase Allan.
Allan, 25, died on Wednesday, March 1, after refusing to comply with the orders of a Farmington Police officer who had stopped due to his non-legal license plate. Blurry video of the plate suggests it had an unknown flag and an additional symbol of some sort.
The video showed an officer approaching Allan’s car after it pulled into a parking lot near a post office. The officer told Allan his license plate was “illegitimate,” and asked to see Allan’s driver license.
Audio captures Allan’s response, stating that he was not required to provide ID, and that he would not be answering the officer’s questions. The officer then radioed for backup.
Allan, speaking through a slightly lowered window, said he did not have to produce a license, but moments later Allan held up something he described as a passport, at first declined to let the officer examine it. When Allan did hand it over, the officer addressed him by the listed name, Chase Allan, and Allan told him ” that is not me. That is a piece of plastic paper.”
Backup officers arrived, and an officer told Allan to exit the car or he would be removed by police.
Allan was recording on his phone, Johnsen said at the news conference, and when he switched the phone from one hand to the other, a holster, empty, could be seen under his jacket, near his right hip. It was not immediately clear whether officers saw the holster in that moment.
Allan continued to be non-compliant and repeated that police had no authority over him, the bodycam video shows. As several officers opened car doors to attempt to remove Allan from the vehicle, video shows Allan moving his hand toward the area of his holster, which was also the area of his seatbelt.
An officer spotted a gun on the passenger-side floor, and shouted “gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, gun!”
Officers began firing on Allan, and he was mortally injured. Five officers involved remain on administrative leave pending the outcome of an external investigation.
Johnsen, asked by reporters if Allan could have been reaching for his seatbelt, replied, “He could have been. It’s in the same location.”
Questioned more about what had happened, Johnsen said he had not interviewed the officers, and people who had just viewed the police bodycam video knew what he did.
Asked if his officers could have reacted in a less lethal way, Johnsen said interactions can escalate from verbal to physical quickly.
“The force continuum goes from verbal to hands on,” he said, adding “we’re all looking at this from a Monday morning quarterback standpoint.”
Johnsen said state statute supports the use of potentially deadly force when officers “feel an imminent threat that could cause serious bodily injury or death to themselves or someone else. That’s the state statute.”
Gephardt Daily will have more information as the case develops.
*WARNING: The following video contains graphic violence viewers may find deeply disturbing.
This is WRONG. Since when is it ok to shoot someone for not exiting their vehicles. These officers should be charged with murder. Release the video to the public and let us see if he threatened them with a weapon found on the floor after they killed him. 12 officers for one guy? This should not be investigated by other officers. Hope the family sues the pants of the Farmington Police officers. This young man definitely did not deserve to die!! Why do they have tasers?