The Utah County Sheriff’s Office report on the officer-involved fatal shooting at the Clean Harbors incinerator in February is in the hands of Tooele County Attorney Scott Broadhead.
The report was turned over last week during a meeting with Utah Highway Patrol, Tooele County Sheriff’s Office and Tooele County Attorney’s Office, according to Utah County Sheriff Sgt. Spencer Cannon.
Broadhead said he will review the police report over the next couple weeks before issuing his report on whether the officer-involved shooting was justified.
The names of the Tooele County Sheriff deputy and Utah Highway Patrol trooper have not been released at the request of their respective agencies, according to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the outside investigation into the officer-involved shooting.
The deputy and trooper have been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the results of the investigation into the shooting, according to Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer.
The name of the man shot by police, Barry Michael Zumwalt, was released two days after he was shot and later died after threatening to blow up propane tanks at Clean Harbors incineration facility in Aragonite.
Zumwalt, 36, was a West Valley City resident and U.S. Navy veteran with a history of mental health struggles, according to Cannon.
The trooper and deputy were dispatched to the remote incineration facility around 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 26 due to threats Zumwalt made to blow up the facility, Wimmer said in February.
Employees at the incineration plant said they approached Zumwalt and asked him to leave after he passed inside the fence at the facility, Cannon said. A confrontation initiated by Zumwalt followed, in which he made threats to blow them up.
The deputy and trooper arrived on scene and Zumwalt did not comply with law enforcement commands, Cannon said. After Zumwalt allegedly threatened the officers with a gun and rifle, they opened fire from about 160 feet away.
Zumwalt was struck and crawled under his vehicle, which the responding officers did not approach, Wimmer said. Due to threats the suspect had made, it was unknown if he had explosives with him or in his vehicle.
A bomb squad called to the scene used a robot but did not receive any response from Zumwalt, according to Wimmer. A SWAT team approached the vehicle and determined the suspect was deceased; no cause of death has been released by any law enforcement agency.
