SALT LAKE CITY — An attorney for the family of a homeless man shot and killed by a security guard outside a state building has released video showing the homicide.
An image from surveillance video showing the shooting of Thomas Stanfield.
The video, provided to FOX 13 on Friday, shows the last moments of Thomas Stanfield’s life. Robert Sykes, an attorney representing the Stanfield family in a civil lawsuit against the state, obtained it through a subpoena of Dominion Energy, whose headquarters is next door.
The video shows Stanfield sleeping outside Utah’s Department of Workforce Services headquarters near 200 East and 300 South. Security guard Timothy Lutes approaches him and shines a flashlight on him.
There is no audio, but the video shows the flashlight go from a bright beam to a “strobe” effect. Sykes said that was used to aggravate Stanfield, leading to a fight. Stanfield repeatedly tried to gather his things, Sykes said. After a few minutes, the men appear to be fighting on the ground. Then Stanfield gets up and walks back toward his stuff and is shot in the back.
Lutes is currently facing a murder charge.
The Stanfield family is suing the state of Utah, Lutes and the company he worked for at the time, Citadel Security.
“I think there’s negligence over and above what there may be in the criminal sphere. I think it was highly negligent of the state of Utah to employ a company, give these guys [guns] and not vet him,” Sykes said.
In a response to the lawsuit, Citadel-Chapman Security asked a judge to dismiss it and denied wrongdoing on behalf of the company.
The Utah Department of Workforce Services initially canceled Citadel’s contract after the shooting. However, a spokesman for the agency said they re-opened the contract and Citadel was among those who re-bid and agreed to abide by more stringent standards and was awarded it.
