Police ID woman hit by UPD vehicle

File photo: Flickr/Edward Kimmel

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, March 7, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — The Unified Police Department has identified a 25-year-old woman who was run over by a patrol car Tuesday night after officers responded to a request for a welfare check.

The woman, who was declared dead at the scene, was Cindreia Simone Europe, 25, a UPD tweet revealed Thursday night. She was from Georgia.

The officer who ran over Europe has been put on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.

UPD Lt. Manfred Lassig told Gephardt Daily that officers were dispatched at 10:51 p.m. Tuesday after receiving a 911 call reporting a person lying on the ground in the area of 3304 S. 2300 East, where a strip mall is located.

That location includes a parking lot, Lassig said, and as the UPD officers drove through the area, trying to locate the individual in the dark, “one of the UPD cars drove over the person, and the person died of the injuries.”

Police from Salt Lake City, Murray and Draper were called to the scene, where they remained as the investigation got underway. Salt Lake City Police Department is handling the investigation.

Lassig said Europe was dressed in dark clothing, and was not in the area where officers expected to find her. People who sleep outside buildings usually position themselves close to the building, he said.

The possibility that she was already dead when hit has also been raised in interviews. Lassig said it would be up to a medical examiner to determine if that was the case. That information has not yet been released.

According to people connected to nearby businesses, the woman now identified as Europe had been sleeping in a vehicle parked in the lot for several days, but that vehicle had been towed away shortly before her death.

This Google Earth photo shows the strip mall at the address police responded to for a Tuesday night welfare check

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