WEST JORDAN, Utah — District Attorney Sim Gill cleared officers Thursday morning for shooting Michael Glad earlier this year.
Officer Whitehead, Shepherd and Hutchings with the West Jordan Police Department were all cleared after being involved in the May incident.
Hutchings was responding to a convenience store robbery in which Glad was a suspect. When Hutchings arrived on scene, he jumped out of his police car pointing his gun at Glad, when Glad raised a gun, pointing it straight at the officer.
“You can hear him say, I don’t want to do this,” Gill said about body camera footage from the incident. “He does not want to be in this position, you can hear him communicate, he does not want to be in a position to fire at him.”
As Hutchings backed away, his body camera footage shows him calling for reinforcements while Glad walks towards him.
Hutchings went across the busy West Jordan street, creating distance between him and Glad, but Hutchings was out in the open.
That’s when a Good Samaritan pulled up in his truck for Hutchings to take cover behind.
“They were certainly grateful for that Samaritan stopping and providing cover with his vehicle,” said Sergeant. J.C. Holt with the West Jordan Police Department.
But then things turned for the worse. Glad jumped into Hutchings' car and took off with an officer K9 and a patrol rifle in the vehicle.
“It really amplified the situation,” Holt said. “It made it worse and it brought things up a notch, and forced officers to take that action to make sure things didn’t get worse than they already were.”
More officers arrived on scene and shots were fired.
“Two go through the windshield,” Gill said. “One through the side panel and one through the side window.”
Glad died from his injuries, the outcome police said they wanted to avoid.
“The way they handled this call, although it lead to this lethal use of force, I think that they showed a lot of composure, a lot of restraint,” Holt said. “They tried to de-escalate the situation before it lead to where it did and unfortunately their efforts in that were not successful.”
