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West Jordan • Officer Cory Tsouras sat on the witness stand Wednesday, tears streaming down his face, as he described shooting and wounding the wrong man in October 2015.
Moments before Tsouras fired his gun, someone dressed in similar clothing had fired at Tsouras' police car, one bullet lodging in his bullet-proof vest and others hitting his headrest.
"I shot the wrong guy," Tsouras told jurors as he choked up. "I shot an innocent person. You know, in my mind this guy was trying to kill me.
Tsouras was in 3rd District Court on Wednesday to testify against the man charged with shooting at him: Jeremy Michael Bowden, 33, who is charged with first-degree felony attempted aggravated murder.
Bowden also is charged with obstruction of justice; receiving or transferring a stolen vehicle; and the purchase, transfer, possession or use of a firearm by a restricted person, which are all second-degree felonies.
In addition, he faces five counts of felony discharge of a firearm, each of which is a third-degree felony, and failure to stop at the command of law enforcement, a misdemeanor.
Bowden's attorney Wesley Howard told jurors that while he contests neither the charge related to the stolen vehicle nor the charge for fleeing from police, another man is responsible for the remainder of the crimes — including for shooting at least five rounds at Tsouras.
"The facts and what's plausible can be, and often are, two different things," Howard said. "We would like to believe that the police always get it right, ... [but] they don't always get it right. ... We don't know what happened to the fellow who actually fired the shots."
On Oct. 30, 2015 about 8:15 p.m., Unified Police Officer Nathan Clark located a stolen truck in the parking lot of a Midvale business, at 38 W. 7200 South. He'd already called for backup when a man approached the truck, he said.
Clark said he blocked the truck with his car, then got out and shined a bright light, fixed atop his gun, at the man.
Clark told jurors Wednesday he got a "fantastic" look at the man, who was dressed in a black leather jacket and blue jeans with a black bandana around his head.
The officer ordered the man to get on the ground. Instead he ran, said Clark, who identified Bowden in court as the man who fled.
Clark said he pursued the man for a short time on foot before losing sight of him. He then radioed that the man was running west near 7200 South and offered a brief description.
Tsouras who was nearby, said that when he caught up with the man in a parking lot near 150 W. 7200 South, the suspect rotated his upper body to the left and Tsouras saw a muzzle flash.
The windows of Tsouras' car shattered around him, glass hitting him in the face and arm. He could "smell the gun powder," he said, and reported "shots fired" to dispatchers. He heard four more "pops" of gunfire, as he sped through the parking lot to put distance between him and the shooter.
He did not see the man's face, Tsouras said. Tsouras then parked near a car wash at 150 W. 7200 South, scouted the area, gun drawn, and spotted a man crouched beneath an awning who was dressed in clothing similar to the shooter. The man who had a dark object in his hands — later identified as a lanyard and set of car keys, Tsouras said, refused to comply with orders to show his hands.
Tsouras fired six to eight times at the man, later identified as 30-year-old Dustin Evans, who had pulled his vehicle into the car wash as Tsouras was being shot at.
Evans, who suffered injuries to his hand and leg from two bullets, filed a notice of claim in April against Salt Lake County through his attorney Rocky Anderson. Anderson said Tuesday he is "working closely with risk management and legal counsel for Unified Police." Evans' physical activities are limited and he has not yet been able to return to work, Anderson said.
In June, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office cleared Tsouras of any criminal wrongdoing.
A Highway Patrol trooper, who happened to be vacuuming out his car at the same car wash, caught dashboard camera footage of a man wearing dark clothing and a dark bandana mount a wall and run toward a nearby apartment complex, prosecutors said Wednesday.
After officers realized Evans was not the suspect, they set up a containment area. Two officers stationed at apartment complex near 7155 South and 190 West saw a man — who proved to be Bowden — jump a fence. Bowden fled, "weaving" through the apartment complex on foot, prosecutors said, slapping away multiple Taser deployments. A third Taser deployment made contact and he fell to the ground and was arrested.
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