This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A January episode in which two Salt Lake City police officers shot and wounded a parolee who pointed a gun at them has been ruled justified by prosecutors.

Palm Samiuela Lautaimi, 28, was shot on Jan. 31 after taking a swing at a police officer who was questioning him, and later pointing a gun at a second officer, according to a report from the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office released on Friday.

Officer Deven Edmunds was on patrol when he saw Lautaimi and a woman walking down the middle of Main Street near 1300 South.

As Edmunds was investigating, Lautaimi kept putting his hands in and out of his pockets, until Edmunds told him he would be handcuffed.

At that point, Lautaimi "took a swing" at the officer and ran, the DA's reports states.

As Edmunds chased Lautaimi, he saw the man point a gun at him, which Edmunds reported on his radio.

Officer Jesse Stone heard the radio call and responded to help.

Soon after, Stone and Edmunds confronted Lautaimi between a house and a garage at 1376 S. Main St.

Stone said he ordered Lautaimi to drop the handgun several times. Instead, Lautaimi raised it to his own head.

Both officers ordered Lautaimi to drop the gun. Stone said he also tried to reason with the man and calm him down, the report states.

When Lautaimi lowered the gun and pointed it in Stone's direction, both officers fired and Lautaimi went down, the report states.

Lautaimi had been arrested two weeks before, on Jan. 16, for allegedly possessing a firearm and drugs — which could have put him back in prison almost immediately until a parole violation hearing was held. But no one from Adult Probation and Parole came to pick him up because it was the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, according to a Salt Lake County Jail report. He was released three days later because no charges had been filed.

Lautaimi's case was one of several involving parolees that prompted Gov. Gary Herbert in February to announce a comprehensive review of Utah's probation and parole system, and which resulted in two top officials from AP&P quitting their jobs.

Lautaimi, meanwhile, was indicted by a federal grand jury with two counts of felon in possession of a firearm, one count of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. A trial is set for August.

All but one of the federal counts stem from a traffic stop in West Valley City on Jan. 16; one of the felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm counts is related to a Jan. 31 police shooting.

A jail report says that a West Valley City officer stopped Lautaimi because a check on a license plate showed the silver sedan he was driving was not insured. According to the report, a loaded .22-caliber handgun and 10 "twist baggies" of methamphetamine were allegedly found on Lautaimi.

Utah court records show that prior to the shooting, Lautaimi had been on parole supervision since Sept. 9, 2014, after serving time on two counts of discharging a weapon from a vehicle and one count of possessing a dangerous weapon.