More Utah residents have been killed in the past five years by police than have gang members, drug dealers or victims of child abuse, a new review by The Salt Lake Tribune found.
Over the five-year period examined by the Tribune, data revealed that deadly shootings by police officers "ranked second only to homicides of intimate partners."
The Tribune reviewed nearly 300 homicides, sifting through media reports, state crime statistics, medical examiner records and court records, to find that the Utah police are responsible for killing 45 people since 2010-- 15 percent of all homicides during that period, and the second most common circumstance in which Utah residents kill each other.
"The numbers reflect that there could be an issue, and it's going to take a deeper understanding of these shootings," Chris Gebhardt, a former police lieutenant and sergeant who worked in Washington D.C. and Utah, said. "It definitely can't be written off as citizen groups being upset with law enforcement."
Nearly all of the 45 fatal shootings were deemed justified by county prosecutors, with only one being deemed unjustified - the 2012 shooting of Denielle Willard by West Valley City police.
However, shootings are investigated by county prosecutors and the agency itself, which creates a higher chance for there to be conflict of interests.
"You've got a very close relationship between officer, prosecutor and judge in this state," said Gebhardt. "There is a gap in the release of information that I think increases the mistrust between the community and police."
But Ian Adams, a West Jordan police officer and spokesman for the Utah Fraternal Order of Police, maintains that Utah officers often use less force than may actually be justified.
"In the vast majority of cases where lethal force was a possibility, the suspect was successfully arrested without the use of lethal force," Adam said. "Of course, these cases do not garner much attention from the press, politicians, or the public."
According to FBI data, Utah officers make around 125,000 arrests each year and only fatally shoot an average of nine people each year.
"Those incidents where police were forced to take [deadly] action represent the truly abnormal," Adams said.
Robert Wadman, a criminal justice professor at Weber State University and former chief of the Omaha, Nebraska police department, says Utah police may be out of touch with the public, which in turns creates a more fearful situation.
"It's my concern, both as a former police chief and an instructor, that we've lost touch with the communities that we serve," Wadman said. "If they're in their cars, going from call to call with their windows rolled up, it's a much more fearful situation than if they are in the communities. This cycle has got to be broken, where police are becoming more and more afraid of the communities they serve. When you work closely with people, you don't have that."
