A U.S. marshal shot dead an alleged Tongan Crips gang member for attacking witness in Utah court, officials said Monday.
Siale Angilau, who was charged with racketeering plot, tried to stab a witness with a pen at a Salt Lake City federal courthouse. A federal marshal then shot him multiple times in the chest. He was rushed to hospital where he was declared dead.
"There were people yelling at him, telling him to stop, and he just didn't stop," Sara Josephson, who was in the courtroom, told CNN affiliate KSTU. "He kept going forward with his furiousness."
"Everything was so fast," Perry Cardwell, son of the witness told The Salt Lake Tribune. He added that the marshal kept firing even after Angilau fell. "I thought, when is he going to stop shooting?" Cardwell said.
Nobody else in the courtroom was hurt, the authorities said.
Judge Tena Campbell announced a mistrial stating that incident happened in front of jury members, left them "visibly shaken and upset." "The court finds that this occurrence in the courtroom would so prejudice Mr. Angilau as to deprive him of a fair trial," Campbell wrote, reports CNN.
Angilau was accused of shooting two deputy U.S. marshals in 2007 and was one among the 9 alleged gang members of Tongan Crips. He and the other gang members were charged with racketeering, robbery and assault. According to the prosecutors, the members were involved in serious offence such as murder, reports the New York Daily News.
The prosecutors had alleged that Angilau committed several convenience store robberies in Salt Lake City and assaulted the stores' clerks from December 2002 to July 2007.
