A law enforcement official in Utah appears to have changed his story about the fatal police shooting of a black man on Wednesday in Saratoga Springs, Utah.
Darrien Hunt, 22, was killed by police last week in a confrontation that authorities said involved a sword outside a Panda Express restaurant. A lawyer for the man’s family later said an autopsy showed Hunt had been shot from behind and was running away when he was killed.
On Saturday, according to the Guardian newspaper, the chief deputy attorney for Utah County, Tim Taylor, released a statement saying Hunt was shot when he lunged at officers.
“When the officers made contact with Mr. Hunt, he brandished the sword and lunged toward the officers with the sword, at which time Mr. Hunt was shot,” Taylor said.
But the Guardian reported that Taylor changed his story on Monday. According to the newspaper, Taylor said Hunt initially lunged at police officers and was “shot at” outside a nearby bank. Taylor told the paper it wasn’t clear whether those initial shots had hit Hunt.
Taylor told the newspaper Hunt went north from there and was shot repeatedly before finally falling to the ground outside the restaurant where he died.
“Whether or not the individual lunged again at point two, the other location, I don’t know about that,” Taylor said, according to the Guardian.
Randall Edwards, the attorney hired by Hunt’s family, told the Guardian in an email on Monday that Taylor’s latest statement “appears to be a major change in the official story.”
Edwards has said witnesses to the shooting as well as an independent autopsy ordered by the victim’s family showed that Hunt was running from the police when he was killed.
If you tell the truth the first time, you are less likely to look like liars at some point later on.
You’ll understand if this story is still not acceptable. They need to keep changing until they admit that he wasn’t a threat to anyone, least of all, them. Or better, they should just shut up and charge the people who shot him in the back with either homicide or complicity to homicide, put them in jail, and make it clear that any other cops that kill people just because they can will get the same treatment.
And once again we get someone who doesn’t understand that one lie is always more effective than two…
How come the actors in the shooting get to change their stories after the fact, and after a person is already dead?
Also - why is it that only The Guardian seems to be able to bring light to these stories…
HoodieWearing
Skittle armed
Tea drinking
Hands up
and now
Lunging
while Black
Is part of the LEO’s training for Shoot-To-Kill scenarios.