Salt Lake County prosecutors announced Friday that two State Bureau of Investigation agents were legally justified when they opened fire on a man who allegedly drove his car at one of them while trying to evade a December 2020 traffic stop.
Both of the agents who opened fire declined to give interviews, but prosecutors reviewed footage of the shooting and spoke with other authorities and witnesses before determining that the shooting was justified, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said.
The man they fired at, Romeo Jimmy Lopez, was grazed by a bullet but not seriously injured.
State Bureau of Investigation agents first encountered Lopez on Dec. 17, 2020, during an undercover narcotics operation. Agents allegedly saw the driver of a Mercedes-Benz GL van, later identified as Lopez, take part in a “hand-to-hand drug transaction”, according to Gill’s finding letter.
They tried to stop the car around 12:40 p.m. that day, but the driver fled and agents didn’t follow. Agents later learned Lopez had active arrest warrants for fleeing and theft.
The agents then went to his address, saw the same van and followed it when Lopez drove away around 2:45 p.m., Gill wrote.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Police at the scene of a shooting, at 700 North and 1860 West in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020.
The agents followed Lopez through a neighborhood for about five minutes. An officer identified only as agent Eddington told investigators that Lopez “appeared to be trying to lose them.” The officers then decided to box Lopez’s van in with their vehicles near 750 North and 1900 West.
Sgt. Christopher Shelby and agent Zorica Jelic-Fallows parked their vehicles in front of Lopez’s car, while Eddington pulled up behind. The officers got out of their vehicles and pointed their guns at Lopez, demanding that he show his hands and get out.
Video shows Lopez reversed into the police car behind him, pushing it backward several feet. Lopez then shifted into drive and accelerated, heading toward agent Fallows, who at that moment was in front of the vehicle near Shelby.
Fallows and Shelby opened fire on the van as it jumped the curb onto the sidewalk, passing within feet of Fallows. Gill said that Shelby could be heard on video telling another officer that he thought Lopez was going to hit Fallows.
“And so that gives us certainly an insight into what he was reacting to,” Gill said. Utah law says a police shooting is legally justified when an officer fires to save their own life or someone else’s.
Investigators were unable to determine exactly how many shots the officers fired. At most, 16 rounds were fired.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Police at the scene of a shooting, at 700 North and 1860 West in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020.
Lopez was grazed by the gunfire but kept driving, hitting a home’s chain-link fence before he ran a stop sign turning west onto 700 North and hit a FedEx delivery truck, disabling his van. He then got out and surrendered.
Lopez was charged a week later with a second-degree felony count of assault against a police officer and two third-degree felony counts of failure to stop. He was not charged with any drug-related crimes despite officers initial suspicions.
“I don’t know about the drug issues,” Gill said Friday. “I know that what was presented to us in our screening certainly didn’t have that information.”
This shooting marked the 30th by authorities in Utah in 2020, matching the state’s then-record-high number of police shootings, which was first reached in 2018. The next year, officers fired in 31 shootings.
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