A Murray police officer opened fire on an armed man early Tuesday during what officers described as a possible mental health crisis, sending the man to the hospital with a condition that remains unknown. The shooting has triggered the activation of Utah's officer-involved critical incident protocol team, and the officer involved has been placed on administrative leave while investigators piece together what happened.
According to KSL, officers responded to a possible mental health crisis involving a male armed with a gun in the area of 5500 South and 200 West. A separate account from Fox 13 places the response in the 5550 block of Yellow Fin Way, where officers say they located the man with the firearm — the two outlets have not reconciled the discrepancy in location.
During the encounter, an officer discharged a firearm, striking the man, KSL reports. He was taken to a hospital, but police have not released his condition. Fox 13 adds that what led to shots being fired has not been disclosed, leaving the central question of the encounter — what the man did, or was believed to do, before the officer fired — unanswered for now.
Investigation Underway, Officer on Leave
The officer-involved critical incident protocol team has been activated to investigate the shooting, and the officer who fired has been placed on administrative leave, per the same account from Fox 13. That protocol is standard practice in Utah following police shootings and is meant to separate the involved officer from active duty while a formal review takes place. Under Utah Code, an officer's use of a dangerous weapon against someone that results in injury can trigger this kind of critical-incident designation. Separately, Salt Lake County's District Attorney's Office has indicated that once a criminal investigation is handed over from law enforcement, findings on an officer's use of force are expected within 180 days of that turnover.
Abigail Jones, reporting for ABC4 Utah, described the incident as active and ongoing, noting the story would be updated as more information became available. It is not yet known whether the man will face charges, whether the officer's decision to fire will be deemed justified, or what the investigation will ultimately conclude.
A Pattern Across Utah Mental Health Calls
Tuesday's shooting is not the first time Murray police have fired on someone during a tense encounter. In March 2025, a Murray officer shot 34-year-old Joshua Matthew Vanhorn in the hand after police said he refused to leave an apartment during an eviction and tried to burn responding officers with aerosol spray and a lighter, according to KSL. That officer was also placed on administrative leave during the investigation.
The broader pattern extends well beyond Murray. A review of 226 Utah police shootings from 2010 through 2020, reported by The Salt Lake Tribune, found that at least 95 of those cases involved someone experiencing a mental health crisis, living with a mental disability, or expressing a desire to die — accounting for at least 42% of shootings statewide during that decade. More than half of those 95 crisis-related encounters ended with the person dying, most often by police gunfire, and in 66% of them the person had a gun. Of the 95 people identified as in crisis, 79% were suicidal, the Tribune found.
That same analysis found mental-health-related calls made up 5.29% of all 911 calls to Salt Lake City police between June 2013 and June 2020. Elsewhere in Utah, a Salt Lake City officer shot and severely injured 13-year-old Linden Cameron, who was unarmed and in crisis, in September 2020, according to PBS Frontline. And KUTV has tracked four officer-involved critical incidents across Utah this year alone, including a fatal shooting in Tooele on Feb. 4, a fatal pedestrian strike by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper in Eagle Mountain on Jan. 8, and an off-duty trooper's shooting at a Taylorsville liquor store on Feb. 26.
For now, the man injured in Tuesday's shooting remains hospitalized, and the fundamental details of what happened before the officer fired have not been made public. Murray police have not said when the investigation might conclude.
