Sounding Like a Defense Atty for Cops, Salt Lake DA says No Matter How Far Away & How Fast Latino Man Ran from Cops It is Reasonable to Believe They Faced Imminent Harm & Had to Shoot Him 34X

From [HERE] and [HERE] Two white police officers in Utah were cleared Thursday in the death of an armed Latino man shot at more than 30 times as he ran away from police, a decision that prompted his grieving family to heighten their calls for systematic changes to law enforcement.

The killing of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, 22, has become a rallying point for protesters in the state amid a national wave of dissent against police brutality.

District Attorney Sim Gill said Palacios-Carbajal was struck 13 to 15 times as he ran away from Salt Lake City police officers who were investigating a gun-threat call and had yelled for him to drop a gun.

Two officers, Neil Iversen and Kevin Fortuna, fired their weapons at Palacios-Carbajal when they confirmed he had a gun in his possession, Gill said. The weapon could be seen on top of Palacios-Carbajal’s body after the shooting, according to body camera footage Gill presented Thursday.

Gill offered condolences to the family shortly before he announced the determination that the shooting was justified.

The Palacios-Carbjal family’s lawyers, Nathan Morris and Brian Webber, take issue with “the decision to shoot a fleeing suspect in the first place,” as he was running away. The first rounds struck the man in the back.

But the officers who fired their weapons told investigators that they didn’t consider using less lethal force because they’d already seen Palacios-Carbajal with a gun. Officers are trained to bring “equal to or greater force” than the suspect they are pursuing, Gill said.

Morris doubts that, he told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview, because another officer can be heard in the body camera footage asking for someone to use a less-than-lethal option.

“There was a disagreement between one officer who said, ‘Tase him! Tase him! Tase him!” and the other officers who defaulted to the use of lethal force, shooting 34 times,” Morris said. “That right there makes me think that there’s an issue relating to the training and what is actually the default when it comes to chasing a fleeing suspect.”

He added that bodycam and security footage shows that “at all times, [Palacios-Carbajal] was running away from” police officers.

“There was plenty of opportunity to default to less violent situations,” Morris said.

Gill, a Democrat, said police saw Palacios-Carbajal had a gun, and officers are generally considered legally justified in using deadly force if they reasonably believe their lives or the lives of others are in danger.

“We decline to file criminal charges against either officer for his use of deadly force," Gill said.

Gill noted in his presentation that Palacios-Carbajal seemed intent on keeping the gun with him — which was concerning for the officers who were chasing him.

“What we can’t ignore is the number of times Mr. Palacios-Carbajal dropped the weapon,” Gill said. “The desire to retrieve the gun was greater than the desire to run away.”

The second “major issue” that the Palacios legal team raises is that the “amount of force that was used on Bernardo was way excessive” after he was “down and disabled.”

“Courts have held that after even one bullet, bullets two through six can be clearly excessive and a violation of established rights — let alone 34 bullets,” Morris said. “What I didn’t hear [from Gill or Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown] was any concern about the number of bullets that were shot.”

Gill said the officers told investigators that they continued to fire because they claim they saw Palacios-Carbajal begin to point his gun at them, and reasonably believed their lives were in danger. He added police are trained to keep shooting until the threat is gone.

The district attorney made much of the fact that, after he was shot and killed, Palacios-Carbajal’s handgun was resting on his waist. Gill argued that this was further evidence the man had been pointing the gun at officers just before they shot at him a second time. If it had merely been in Palacios-Carbajal’s hand, Gill said, it likely would have fallen near him on the asphalt.

But Morris said “there’s any number of ways” the gun could have ended up on top of him, suggesting it landed there as Palacios-Carbajal fell after he was first shot.

“I’m speculating, just the way Mr. Gill would have to speculate,” he said. “The fact that it was there, to me does not indicate one way or the other what Mr. Palacios’ intentions were.”

He also disagreed that there is any evidence to suggest Palacios-Carbajal posed a threat to turn his gun on the officers, which was a concern the officers later recounted to investigators.

“One clear possibility in that situation is that Bernardo was turning, looking at them and putting his hand up to tell them to stop shooting,” Morris said. “There’s not only one possibility here. And the video that we saw does not show at any point that Bernado lifted a gun and pointed it at the officers.”

And on the audio from one of the officer’s bodycams “you could hear Bernardo’s voice saying, ‘Officer, I don’t want to die.’ And continuing to run away.” Salt Lake Tribune journalists reviewing the footage also hear the phrase.

“That wasn’t brought up by Mr. Gill. He brought up things to help his case and help the police.”

The district attorney’s office said Friday they found no evidence of Palacios-Carbajal saying that.

Morris believes that since Officers Neil Iversen and Kevin Fortuna fired so many rounds at Palacios-Carbajal when he was already wounded, Gill could have filed charges.

“He had every opportunity and every right under the wording of the law to say the threat of harm had abated. That it was removed,” Morris said. “And yet they continued to shoot him while he was on the ground.”

The video shows Iverson and Fortuna continuing to fire for nine seconds after Palacios-Carbajal was down. While they fired 34 rounds, it is not clear how many of them hit Palacios-Carbajal. He had roughly 15 injuries, but some bullets may have caused entry and exit wounds.

Members of Palacios-Carbajal’s family expressed pain and frustration with the district attorney’s decision. The family's attorneys said Gill had chosen to perpetuate a “system of oppression” by not bringing charges against the officers.

Morris said he and Palacios-Carbajal’s family are frustrated not just with Gill’s decision, but with the way he looked at the evidence.

“It’s not just that Mr. Gill decided that it was a justified shooting, but that at every turn he answered all of these unknown questions [by] giving the benefit of the doubt to the officers as opposed to leaving that as a question that a jury or a judge would need to ultimately decide.”

Asked what a trial would have looked like if Gill had filed charges against the officers, Morris quickly replied, “Well, we’re going to find out.”

The Palacios-Carbajal attorneys are looking at other possible violations and working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah and other social justice groups in their plan to file suit against Salt Lake City, the police department and possibly the officers.

“As a family, we will not stop in our pursuit of justice for Bernardo through all means that are available to us,” attorney Nathan S. Morris read from a statement prepared on behalf of the family, who called for peaceful protest.

Protesters rallied Thursday evening and some clashed with police. Authorities declared an unlawful assembly after windows were smashed at the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office, Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown said on Twitter. An officer was injured and two people were arrested, according to police. The governor declared a state of emergency to close the Capitol building and grounds until July 13, The Deseret News reported.

Lucy Carbajal, Palacios-Carbajal’s mother, sobbed as she described in Spanish the pain her family has felt following her son's death. His brother, Freddie Palacios-Carbajal, said that hearing Gill's decision made him feel sick.

“I feel like they just get a pat on the back for what they did, and I don’t agree with any of it,” he said.

Demonstrators have chanted Palacios-Carbajal's name, posted fliers calling for justice and painted the street outside Gill's office red to symbolize blood. Mayor Erin Mendenhall previously called video of the shooting “disturbing and upsetting," though the Democrat said Thursday the full evidence showed the officers followed their training and state law.

Palacios-Carbajal died shortly after midnight on May 23, after someone called police to report an apparent armed robbery, Gill said. Officers saw Palacios-Carbajal near the Utah Village Motel and chased him, yelling for him to stop and drop the weapon, Gill said.

Video footage shows Palacios-Carbajal trip and fall several times before getting up and continuing to run, picking up what officers identified as a gun from the ground before two officers begin shooting, Gill said.

Iversen and Fortuna were put on administrative leave, standard practice for a police shooting. Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said in a statement he trusts the review process and his officers. “They are asked to do an impossible job, and often receive little thanks for it,” he said.