News

Actions

Draper police received anonymous tip about suspect hours before deadly Sandy shooting

Posted at 7:48 PM, Jun 14, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-14 21:48:18-04

SANDY, Utah — Police in Draper say they received an anonymous tip about the suspect in a deadly shooting in Sandy just hours before the attack unfolded.

Rackley family Sandy shooting victims – GoFundMe

Deputy Chief John Eining of the Draper Police Department said they received the tip just before 12:30 p.m. on June 6, about three hours before Jeremy Patterson shot and killed Memorez Rackley and her 6-year-old son Jase and wounded two other children before taking his own life.

“We received an anonymous tip stating that, the day before on Monday, this particular person had received a message that a Jeremy [Patterson] had broken up with his girlfriend and he wanted to kill her and then himself,” Eining said.

Eining said the tip came in anonymously through the Valley Emergency Communication system and lacked the details they needed to find the suspect.

“It came in anonymously, so the only recourse we had was to take what little information we had and retry to contact the person who was calling us,” he said. “So the officer who got this phone call tried to contact the complainant and get more information from the complainant, tried on several occasions to make that phone call and each time he called he didn’t get a response back or didn’t make contact with them.”

That officer tried running Patterson’s name in the state system but located several men with that name and didn’t have enough specific information to narrow it down enough to make contact with any of them.

Eining adds that the tip they received was not unique and that Sandy Police received similar tips about the suspect making threats.

“The information that we received was really not unique, the threats had been made prior to,” he said. “Sandy police had investigated those threats, and I think it was three days prior to the actual shooting the same type of threats had been made, so the information we had received on that particular day was not unique to the situation.”

He said the information was new to their department, and at the time they were unaware that Sandy police had also been following up on similar threats.

“There just wasn’t much for us to follow-up on,” Eining said. “But we did attempt to follow-up on the information that we had, it’s just that there wasn’t much there for us to work with.”

Patterson made several threatening posts on Instagram prior to the shooting.

Rackley’s 11-year-old son Myles was in critical condition after the shooting and is recovering in a hospital. The other child wounded in the shooting was the daughter of a good Samaritan who stopped to help the Rackley family. That child suffered lesser injuries and is expected to be OK.

Support is available 24/7 in Utah for those dealing with domestic violence. Visit the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition online or call 1-800-897-5465 for resources and assistance. In an emergency, dial 911.

Anyone who would like to help the victims’ family pay for funeral and memorial services is asked to send donations to the Rackley Memorial Fund at Mountain America Credit Union.