Tribune editorial: Salt Lake City needs to know a lot more about how the ‘No Kings’ shooting came to happen

“If you say in the first act that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third act it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.” – Anton Chekhov

If any of the 10,000 or more protesters at the June 14 “No Kings” demonstration in downtown Salt Lake City had stopped off on their way to the event for a beer or other libation, state law would require them to produce a driver license to be scanned by the bartender.

Which means that it is far easier to get a permit to hold a massive event on the capital city’s central avenue — and bring along some armed “security” folks — than it is to get a drink in Utah.

We need to decide if that’s any way to run a city. And, to know that, we need to know a lot more details about how the events of that day unfolded.

More than a month after the fatal shooting of an innocent bystander that marred the otherwise peaceful pro-democracy demonstration, the people of Salt Lake City still don’t know who was responsible for planning and managing the event. We don’t know whose bad idea it was for someone among the event’s organizers to have some armed “peacekeepers” loitering about the demonstration. We don’t know how those packing were selected and how, or if, they were trained or briefed.

And we still don’t know the identity of the only person to have fired any shots that day, including the bullet that killed Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo, a 39-year-old, Samoa-born resident of Clearfield, a fashion designer who left behind a wife and two children.

Prosecutors may indeed need more time to figure out whether any criminal charges should be filed, and against whom. Utah’s absurdly permissive gun laws can make it difficult for those who enforce the law to determine who, if anyone, did anything criminal, even when shots are fired and people are killed.

But while that pondering goes on, it is time for police to name the person who — while aiming at someone else — shot Ah Loo. The police know who that person is, as the shooter was immediately known to officers at the scene and, we are told, fully cooperated in the investigation.

The intended target of the armed “peacekeeper” was an extremely foolish 24-year-old man by the name of Arturo Gamboa. Someone who apparently likes to attend such events carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle.

Though Gamboa did not shoot anyone, did not fire his weapon at all that day, it should be no surprise that someone who had taken it upon themselves to provide armed security for the event would perceive someone toting an assault weapon as a clear and present danger, and to shoot first.

Gamboa was wounded and was arrested, but released days later when prosecutors, hampered by Utah’s open-carry laws, couldn’t see a way to charge him with a crime.

The full details of what went on that day, and what led up to the tragedy, need to be fully investigated and widely understood.

As the civil rights advocates at the ACLU of Utah correctly point out, Utahns need to know that public demonstrations are safe to all who choose to attend. Otherwise the basic First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” is seriously undermined.

The records kept by the Salt Lake City Police Department show that the parade permit was issued to one Michael Andaman, about whom little is known, on behalf of a mysterious corporation based in Wyoming.

The sponsor of the event was the Utah chapter of a national organization called 50501, which organizes pro-democracy and civil rights demonstrations across the country.

Hundreds of similar “No Kings” events, protesting the policies of the Trump administration, were held across the nation on the same day, and only in Salt Lake City was there any violence. The national group says it uniformly bans firearms at all its events and, because of what happened here, has cut its ties with the Utah chapter.

Getting a permit to hold a political demonstration on just about any street in the United States should be possible, with straightforward rules that don’t discriminate against anyone based on their ideology or message. Our Constitution requires it.

But government agencies have the right, and the responsibility, to take all reasonable steps to head off any possibility of violence. Armed security, to the extent it may be necessary, should be the responsibility of sworn police officers, not self-appointed “peacekeepers.”

Mayor Erin Mendenhall and members of the City Council need to take a hard look at how, and to whom, the city grants event permits, and to make it clear that guns are not welcome.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.