SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Sept. 7, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A 13-year-old boy is hospitalized with multiple injuries after he was shot late Friday night by a Salt Lake City police officer.
Linden Cameren has injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines, and bladder, according to a GoFundMe account set up to help the family with his medical expenses.
“The long term effects of his injuries are still unknown, but it is likely that his recovery will be long and require multiple kinds of treatment,” the fund-raising page says. “The money from this fund will be used to pay for Linden’s hospital bills, physical therapy, and trauma healing for Linden, and also to assist his family as they move through his healing.”
Linden has autism and was having what Salt Lake City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Keith Horrocks described as a “mental episode” when officers were called to his home near 500 South and Navajo Street in the Glendale neighborhood shortly after 10 p.m. Friday.
Horrocks told reporters near the scene of the shooting that officers had been told the juvenile, whose age he did not disclose, had made threats to someone with a weapon.
“Our officers came into the area and, given the threats with a weapon, they arrived and made contact with the male,” Horrocks said. “He fled on foot away from the address and, during a short foot pursuit, an officer discharged his firearm, striking that subject.”
He also said there was no indication that the youth had a weapon in his possession, “but we don’t know for sure.”
The incident is being investigated by a team from West Valley City Police Department, in accordance with officer-involved-critical-incident protocol.
Neither WVCPD nor SLCPD have released any details about the case other than the information provided a few hours after the shooting, as referenced above.
Linden’s mother, Golda Barton, has said in an interview with KUTV that she is the person who called police and asked for a crisis intervention team, also known as CIT, because her son was having a mental breakdown and needed to go to the hospital.
She said she told the officers on the phone that her son was not armed, but was yelling and screaming because he’s a kid and wants attention but doesn’t know how to regulate.
Barton said she was told the officers would de-escalate the situation, but within five minutes of their arrival, she heard them yell “get down on the ground,” and several shots were fired.
Now Barton is asking why the police didn’t just tackle Linden, whom she describes as a small child with mental issues.
On her Facebook page, Barton asks that everyone “Please Pray for my son!!!”
To view the GoFundMe account for Linden, click here.
Gephardt Daily will update this story as more information becomes known.
