A man is in serious condition after two Salt Lake City police officers shot him downtown Monday night, following reports that he was smashing car windshields with a knife near 400 South and 600 East. Officers were called to the area around 8:20 p.m. after receiving reports of a person acting erratically, and the encounter ended with gunfire that sent the man to a hospital.
According to FOX 13 News Utah, Salt Lake City police received reports of a person hitting nearby cars and their windshields before officers located the man downtown. Police say the man had a knife, and two officers ultimately fired shots, striking him. He was taken to a hospital in Salt Lake City and was listed in serious condition. As of Monday night, 600 East remained closed for several more hours while officers worked the scene.
Independent Investigators Will Take Over the Criminal Inquiry
Because two officers fired their weapons and the man was injured, Utah law automatically triggers the Officer-Involved Critical Incident protocol under Utah Code Section 76-2-408, which requires an outside law enforcement agency — not the Salt Lake City Police Department — to lead the criminal investigation into what happened. That framework, detailed by the Unified Police Department, exists specifically so officers are not put in the position of investigating their own department's use of force.
Once that task-force investigation wraps up, the case moves to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, led by Sim Gill, which conducts its own independent legal review to determine whether the officers' decision to fire was legally justified under Utah's self-defense statutes. It was that same review process that in April cleared an SLCPD officer who shot a 19-year-old suspect after the teen raised a rock over a fallen officer during a foot pursuit, a case Hoodline previously reported resulted in the suspect surviving and later being convicted.
Body-Camera Footage Expected Within Days
Under a policy Mayor Erin Mendenhall put in place in September 2020, Salt Lake City police are required to release body-worn camera footage from officer-involved critical incidents within 10 business days of the encounter. The footage is released up to the point medical care begins, subject to redactions under Utah's Government Records Access and Management Act, according to the Salt Lake City Mayor's Office. SLCPD followed that same practice in November 2025, when it released bodycam video from a separate fatal shooting involving an armed subject, a release Hoodline covered in its report on the death of Jose Hernandez.
Monday's shooting will also be measured against the city's use-of-force policy, which Mendenhall's office set in August 2020 with standards stricter than the constitutional threshold established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor. That policy requires officers to prioritize de-escalation and use the minimum force necessary before resorting to a weapon.
Open Questions and a Familiar Corridor
It remains unclear which outside agency has been assigned to lead the criminal investigation into Monday's shooting, and the man's current medical condition beyond the initial serious-condition report has not been released. It is also not known whether crisis intervention or mental health resources were dispatched during the initial response to reports of erratic behavior, a detail that matters given that roughly 40 percent of police shootings in Utah involve people experiencing acute mental health crises or displaying erratic public behavior, per regional law enforcement data cited in past coverage of similar cases.
The shooting happened just two blocks from 600 East and 200 South, where a 23-year-old man was fatally shot in October 2023 following an argument, according to Gephardt Daily. Salt Lake City police have operated under a three-phase violent crime reduction strategy along major downtown corridors since late 2022, focused on hot-spot policing and targeted deterrence, following a rise in violent crime rates after 2020.
