Utah Police Kill More People than Gang Members

By Carla Murphy Nov 24, 2014

Police in Utah have killed more people in the past five years than gang members, drug dealers or child abusers. That’s the sobering finding of a Salt Lake Tribune review of nearly 300 homicides over the same period. Only intimate partner violence surpasses police use of force as the most common way that Utah residents kill each other. A number of high-profile incidents this year–Michael Brown’s, Eric Garner’s and John Crawford’s deaths, the death this weekend of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy holding a toy gun, and slew of cell phone videos capturing police brutality–has catapulted the issue of "police use of force" and public trust into main street conversations. Last month, outgoing attorney general Eric Holder urged the creation of a national commission to examine and modernize police tactics and training.