The recent “violent and intense confrontation” involving Salt Lake City police officers, which resulted in the death of a man suspected of groping a woman at a massage parlor, happened directly across the street from where I live and, while I did not witness the actual incident (I did hear the gunfire, though), I did see much of the aftermath.
One issue that has not yet been addressed is whether the police followed appropriate protocol in their confrontation with the suspect. The fundamental facts appear to be as follows: 1) the police were able to identify and arrest the suspect at a Walgreens store shortly after the incident at the massage parlor; 2) normal police procedure would have required that the police run a quick background check on the suspect to determine whether he might pose a danger to himself or others; 3) the suspect had spent time at the Utah prison for at least a decade, partly in response to violent episodes; 4) the police elected not to handcuff the suspect; 5) as a result, the suspect was enabled to retrieve a baton from the belt of one of the officers and commence beating the officers with that weapon; and 6) to defend themselves, police officers found it necessary to shoot and kill the suspect.
No one could legitimately and rightly claim that the police have no right to defend themselves in the course of a violent confrontation. But, surely, we are entitled to ask why, in the course of their arrest, the police did not handcuff this quite obviously deranged individual. Had they done so, perhaps this tragedy could have been averted.
Thomas N. Thompson, Salt Lake City