|
 The police killing of Darrien Hunt in Sarasota Springs last
September raised tensions in the mostly white city some 30 miles (48
km) south of Salt Lake City, and came a month after a white police
officer in Ferguson, Missouri, fatally shot an unarmed black teen,
prompting waves of protests across the country.
The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division said in a
letter to the family's attorney that it was probing Hunt's killing
along with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah, the
Tribune said. A copy of the letter was published online by the
Tribune.
"We're kind of elated that the federal government's taking a
significant interest in this," Hunt family attorney Robert Sykes
told the Tribune on Friday evening.
 Authorities said Hunt lunged at two officers responding to a report
of a man walking around with a sword, before he fled and was fatally
shot by the policemen.
Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman declined to press charges against
the officers, saying they were justified in using deadly force
because they thought he would harm them or others.
A private autopsy on Hunt showed he was shot six times, with no
bullets entering his body from the front. He was in costume as a
Japanese anime character when he was killed and the sword was a
showpiece with a dull, rounded blade, his family told media.
In a separate civil lawsuit filed in federal court in Salt Lake City
last month, Hunt's parents said he did not threaten the officers and
removed the sword from its sheath at their request. The lawsuit
contends that neither officer warned Hunt before he was shot.
[to top of second column] |
The suit seeks an unspecified amount of money, demands that the
shooting be deemed unconstitutional, and that the city's police
officers be equipped with body cameras.
Saratoga Springs is home to Mia Love, a former mayor who last year
became the first black Republican woman elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Nick
Macfie)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
