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Black and white pictures cover a large poster board thats coated with red paint and handprints, as if illustrated in blood. Its so big that two protesters have to hold it. On a recent Saturday, theyre standing outside the Salt Lake County District Attorneys Office, demonstrating against police brutality and chanting for accountability from cops.

Sim Gill, it reads, their blood is on your hands.

Valencia was killed March 21, after police were called to investigate a report of shots fired. He was driving a car, and police tried to stop it, but he kept going. He crashed soon after, got out of the car and tried to run. Police have released few details about what happened next, but he was killed by Unified police during some kind of confrontation in a vacant homes backyard.

Palacios-Carbajal was killed May 23, when police investigating a gun threat saw him in the area, chased him and shot him in the back as he ran away, believing he had a gun. His death has sparked numerous protests in Salt Lake City, including demonstrations held each night in front of the district attorneys office, where protesters vow to rally until the release of the investigative report into his death, which prosecutors have said could come in the next two weeks.

If historys a guide, the officers involved in both of these shootings will avoid any felony or misdemeanor counts. In the past decade, only three police officers in Utah have been charged after shooting at someone while on duty and none has been convicted. Gills office has been involved in charging police in those three cases, which is a statistic that draws criticism: Activists argue three isnt enough. Police advocates counter that its three too many.

Gill faces a decision in a highly charged time, after weeks of protests in Salt Lake City and throughout the nation. He says hell set all of that aside and simply follow the law. Here is a look at what that legal standard is, what it takes to charge officers, and why it so rarely happens.

Utah law says officers can legally kill someone if they reasonably believe they must do so to prevent death or serious bodily injury to an officer or someone else.

Its hardly a unique standard. It is used in other states rooted in a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 1989 that found reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation.

When a police officer kills someone in Utah, it prompts an investigation from a county attorney or review board to determine whether an officers use of deadly force was justified or whether it violated the law.

The Salt Lake Tribune has tracked 185 cases in which police in Utah have shot at someone since 2010, and 92% of those cases were determined to be legally justified. Nearly a dozen cases are still pending.

In six cases, prosecutors determined that while an officer wasnt legally justified in using deadly force, they opted to not charge him or her with a crime deciding that it was unlikely that a jury would convict an officer based on the available evidence.

That happened in 2013, when Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings ruled that an officer wasnt justified when he shot a woman in the eye who led police on a drunken car chase, and again a few years later when the Iron County Critical Incident Task Force found in 2018 that a shooting wasnt justified when an officer injured a burglary suspect who was neither fleeing nor threatening anyone.

But in those rare instances when an officer is charged thats happened in 0.01% of cases prosecutors havent netted a conviction. Twice Gills office has filed charges against an officer only to later drop the case.

In a third case, Gill in 2014 charged former West Valley City Officer Shaun Cowley with second-degree felony manslaughter for shooting and killing 21-year-old Danielle Willard during an undercover drug operation as she backed out of a parking spot. Cowley had asserted that he feared for his life as her car backed toward him.

A judge dismissed the case after a preliminary hearing, finding that prosecutors did not have enough evidence to show that Cowley committed a crime. Thats a rare ruling at that stage, when all testimony must be considered in the states favor.

The prosecution had a small, low bar to get over, Fraternal Order of Police Executive Director Ian Adams said then. And they tripped.

Gill said if Utahns want police officers to be charged more often, itll require changing the states law. There have been no recent proposals for such legislation in Utah.

Federal lawmakers have debated two recent police bills, including the Justice in Policing Act. The House passed this Democratic-led bill Thursday, which proposes sweeping reform to how officers do their jobs and how they are held accountable. The bill changes the reasonable standard, so instead of prosecutors determining whether the officers force was reasonable, theyd have to determine if it was necessary. A Senate Republican bill that was blocked from consideration doesnt include this proposal.

In light of the nightly protests against police brutality many focused on the fatal police shooting of Palacios-Carbajal Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has said shed support changes to define what reasonable means. In a tweet, she listed changes Salt Lake City officials were considering and one of them was support changes to state code on the use of deadly force and the legal standard for what is reasonable.

Gill said he, too, would support a change in the law. Other prosecutors in the state werent eager to speak out several did not respond to a request for comment. Utahs Statewide Association of Prosecutors did not want to weigh in.

Many of Utahs cops oppose changing the law.

Orem Police Chief Gary Giles said he hasnt seen issues with how the law has been applied through the years. He worries about adding more processes in which people who might not fully understand policing are weighing in on whether an officer did the right thing.

If an officer does something egregious, they need to be charged, he said. But the problem is, who do we want to have out protecting us? We want the best of the best. If, 28 years ago, I was told there was a really good chance I go to work and Im going to be forced into a situation to decide whether Im going to go home tonight or I go to prison, I dont know if I would want to be a police officer.

Adams, with Utahs Fraternal Order of Police, said he believes the statute is appropriate as is, and warned that changing it could create a law that doesnt understand the chaotic and fluid and very dynamic situations officers encounter.

This kind of tweak could create a situation where youre expecting a police officer to get shot before they can take any action, he said, and thats not reasonable.

Adams said that while the FOP wouldnt support changing the reasonable standard, there is room for reform in policing. For instance, he said, the group is lobbying to add more voices to the Peace Officer Standards and Training board, which handles officer discipline, including reserving a seat for the NAACP.

We think increasing representativeness in that body makes a lot of sense, Adams said.

Complicated investigations

Gill said that even when prosecutors believe charging an officer is appropriate, they face another barrier: collecting evidence.

Sometimes officers involved in the investigation dont give clear statements about what theyve seen, he said. In many cases, the officer who shot the person has chosen not to speak with Gills team at all.

Its that officers constitutional right, Gill conceded, but added that it makes it hard for prosecutors to do their jobs and sows distrust between law enforcement and those they police.

Adams sees it differently. He said he hasnt yet seen a Utah case where the officer deserved to be charged. When it happens, Adams said it seems to be because its politically motivated.

Recently, when a FOP attorney takes on an officers police shooting case, he has advised the officers not to speak to Gills prosecutors. Its not policy, Adams said, but he understands why an officer might choose to invoke the Fifth Amendment in those interviews.

If an officer or their attorney believes theres political bias on behalf of a prosecutor to disadvantage them, he said, then I dont blame them.

At this time, as anger at the Floyd killing has spread nationwide, state legislators and city leaders are feeling pressure to take funding from police departments and implement other reforms.

Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said he is also getting input from police and the NAACP for some reform bills.

Hes not looking at the reasonableness standard in Utahs use of force law, but he said creating a statewide standard for use of force like lawmakers have done for police pursuits is on the table.

Thatcher said theres also some talk about adding punishments for instances when a police officers use of force involves the pure and deliberate, ad hoc infliction of pain for no reasonable purpose like is seen in the Floyd video. Hes also looking at a way to make use-of-force complaint findings more transparent.

Currently, theres no standard. Gills office routinely posts its findings online. No other county attorney in the state does this.

So far, protesters demonstrating for Palacios-Carbajal have called these incremental changes and reforms scraps, lip service to the movement without any teeth.

As theyve marched downtown streets each night for more than a week, theyve made their demands clear: They want murder charges filed against the officers who shot Palacios-Carbajal. They want an overhaul of a system that they feel favors the cops. They want a revolution or, at least, a paradigm shift.

D.A. whats your play? they chant. Put these killer cops away!

Correction: 12:20 p.m., June 28, 2020: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of officers charged after killing someone.

The rest is here:
Only 3 Utah cops faced charges for shooting at people in the past decade. None was convicted. Here's why. - Salt Lake Tribune