A man making threats against the Clean Harbors hazardous waste disposal facility near Aragonite was shot by law enforcement officers and died Sunday morning.
The Tooele County Sheriff’s Office and Utah Highway Patrol were dispatched to the remote incinerator facility around 6:30 a.m. after employees said a suspicious man made threats, including to blow up the facility’s propane tanks, according to Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer. The suspect was outside the facility and the caller reported he had a knife and possibly a gun, prompting Clean Harbors to go into lock down.
A sheriff’s deputy and trooper arrived together at the facility about 15 minutes after the call from dispatch, Wimmer said. When the law enforcement officers exited their cars and confronted him, the suspect brandished what appeared to be a rifle at them and they opened fire, striking the man.
After the shots were fired, the injured suspect crawled under his vehicle and the responding officers did not approach, Wimmer said. Due to the threats the suspect had made, it was unknown if he had explosives with him or in his vehicle, so a bomb squad was called to respond to the scene.
The bomb squad used a robot but were unable to receive a response from the suspect and eventually a SWAT team was called to approach the vehicle, Wimmer said. It was then determined the suspect was deceased, though the sheriff’s office said the cause of death is still under investigation.
It took a couple hours for the suspect’s condition to be determined due to the time it took the bomb squad and SWAT team to assemble and drive to the scene, Wimmer said.
The identity of the suspect has not been released by law enforcement and it is still unclear if he was connected to Clean Harbors, Wimmer said.
The deputy and trooper have been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation into the shooting, according to Wimmer. The Utah County Sheriff’s Office is conducting the outside investigation into officer-involved shootings.