Police: Agitated man arrested after attempt to disarm officer at Salt Lake City Greyhound station

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Nov. 6, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — A 27-year-old man yelling at officials and bystanders at the Greyhound Bus Station, saying he “was not going to leave the building and wanted a bus ticket or arrested so he could be sent back to India,” was booked into jail after police say he tried to disarm an officer of the Utah Transit Authority.

After the Friday morning incident, the suspect is facing charges of:

  • Disarming a police officer, a first-degree felony
  • Criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor
  • Interference with an arresting officer, a class B misdemeanor
  • Disorderly conduct fighting/violent tumultuous behavior, an infraction

A UTA officer was dispatched to the bus station “on a report of a male screaming obscenities at patrons and refusing to leave the building when asked by security,” the man’s probable cause statement says.

Gephardt Daily is not naming the suspect because he is believed to be suffering from undiagnosed mental illness, the police statement says, and he is being held without bail, so does not pose a current threat to the public.

“I arrived and was talking to the security officer when the suspect came up and immediately butted into the conversation demanding that he was not going to leave the building and wanted a bus ticket or arrested so he could be sent back to India,” the officer’s statement says.

“The suspect kept walking to my gun side and staring at my gun causing me to turn away from the male who kept trying to circle me while staring at my gun.”

The man identified himself using Utah County Jail booking papers, and refused to leave. Security said that the suspect was trespassing and Greyhound would not sell him a ticket.

The UTA officer said he explained to the suspect that he was trespassing, and asked him five times to leave. The suspect declined.

“I directed him to the door and he refused to leave so I took a hold of his arm and he immediately began fighting me trying to break away,” the officer said in his report.

“I told him multiple times to stop resisting but he kept fighting me and we
went to the floor where the male grabbed my pistol with his left hand and tugged on my gun and I had to break his grip from my weapon and tried to handcuff him, and telling him he was under arrest, but he continued to fight me and tried to run away. We again ended up on the ground where I was able to pin him to the ground till the manager of Greyhound Bus and the security officer helped me to get the suspect’s arms under control and in handcuffs.”

The officer said the suspect “continued to yell nonsense” and declined to move or leave the building. It took two officers to force the suspect into a patrol car, the statement says.

“The suspect appears to have mental issues, possible schizophrenia and other undiagnosed mental issues,” the officer’s statement says.

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