More than four months ago, Laura Ah Loo became a widow. Her husband, Afa Ah Loo, was fatally shot at a Salt Lake City No Kings march in June, where the 39-year-old was an innocent bystander.
Since then, no charges have been filed. And Laura Ah Loo’s legal team said there’s been hardly any communication or transparency from prosecutors and city officials.
Still grieving and tired of waiting for answers, Ah Loo and her counsel plan to file a civil wrongful death lawsuit before the end of the year. In the meantime, Ah Loo and her attorneys from Parker and McConkie are calling for action from officials who have the power to press charges and investigate the shooting.
Speaking to reporters Oct. 29, attorney Jim McConkie left no doubt who they believe is responsible for Afa’s death: the safety volunteer who fired the fatal shot, one of the self-described “peacekeepers” for the event. Police and prosecutors have not named the individual, but McConkie said it was Matt Alder.
“We've communicated with his attorney. There's no question that Matt Alder is the person involved,” McConkie told KUER after the announcement.
In late June, attorney Phil Wormdahl confirmed via email to KUER that he was representing Alder. At the time, he asked that Alder not be named, as he had not been charged with a crime. Wormdahl was not immediately available for comment after McConkie’s statements.
In the aftermath of the fatal march, two safety volunteers told police that they saw an individual, Arturo Gamboa, holding a rifle. Believing him to be a threat, one of the volunteers fired three shots, hitting Gamboa but also Afa Ah Loo. Gamboa was taken into custody but later released. His attorney said his client’s rifle was unloaded at the time.
McConkie anticipates looking at Alder, the safety volunteer, as a defendant in their planned lawsuit, and said they will likely add more names as they get more information, including possibly organizers of the protest.
Laura Ah Loo, now a widowed mother of two young children, appeared solemn, with her eyes looking down most of the time, as she read a statement to the assembled reporters. Her attorneys took questions for her. Soft spoken and at times holding back tears, it was clear it was not where she wanted to be.
“Staying silent would be easier, but silence won't bring him back,” Ah Loo said. “Silence won't protect the next event from a similar incident, or the next family from getting the kind of call that shattered my world and my kids' world.”
On that fateful day, Ah Loo said her husband was exercising his protected First Amendment right to protest, something people should be able to do in a public space without fear.
“This is about responsibility and a call to real action. We need to not only disagree better, but also to deliver better,” Ah Loo said, appearing to refer to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s Disagree Better campaign.
“Responsibility means recognizing that the right to bear arms comes with the duty to ensure safety while doing so, to de-escalate conflict before firing a weapon and to follow logic and safety rather than endangering others,” Ah Loo said. “Responsibility means that those who organize and oversee public gatherings must prioritize transparency, preparation, and the well-being of all participants, not convenience or ease.”
She said her husband’s death was the “result of individual, organizational, and systemic failures.”
Ah Loo has not spoken much publicly in the wake of her husband’s death. When she spoke at a public memorial in June, she focused on the life that Afa Ah Loo lived and the impact he had, rather than how he died and what she thought of the pending criminal case. At the time, Ah Loo said losing her husband felt like losing the sun.
McConkie called it “somewhat incredible that four months have passed and there's been no official action on this matter.”
While it takes time to investigate a case, the former federal prosecutor said he believes that Alder should have been charged weeks ago.
The case is currently in the hands of the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office. In June, District Attorney Sim Gill asked for patience. After the news conference held by Laura Ah Loo and her lawyers, Gill later followed with a statement.
“We sympathize with the pain and loss suffered by the Ah Loo family. We met with them early in the process and explained that this review would take time. We have been open and available to any reach in from their counsel from our first meeting and continue to be. We are carefully working through a complex and nuanced legal analysis.”
“We expect to reach a decision soon,” Gill said.
McConkie said Ah Loo did meet with Gill’s office about a month after the shooting, but “she has not received any official word on this case for months.” McConkie said Gill’s office should be doing more to involve Ah Loo and her attorneys in the case.
McConkie also pointed to Utah's bill of rights for victims. He said prosecutors have a duty to “move things along.” The state code calls for “speedy disposition” of criminal cases.
Another of Ah Loo’s attorneys, Richard Lambert, is concerned that Ah Loo and her family haven’t been afforded that timeliness. He also worries that as the case drags on, it fades from the public consciousness.
“And the demand for justice and accountability can also fade,” Lambert said.
The career prosecutor said he’s never seen a situation with this “this magnitude of public concern and public impact” where the identity of the person who fired the fatal shot was not publicly revealed.
“This is not a ‘whodunit.’ We know who did it,” Lambert said.
One of the big questions for prosecutors is whether Alder was justified in firing his weapon, but Lambert thinks, based on the evidence, it wasn’t reasonable or justified. Gamboa was lawfully carrying a rifle, he said, and the evidence they’ve seen, including videos, shows Gamboa’s rifle pointed at the ground.
Ah Loo’s lawyers also have frustrations with Salt Lake City, which issued the protest permit. McConkie said they filed a public records request for all documentation related to the protest, and all they got back was the permit with the name of the event organizer redacted. The city has since changed its permitting process.
There’s been almost no information publicly released about the organizers of the event, a local 50501 chapter that was disavowed by the national movement. A copy of the permit listed the name “Michael Andaman” as the applicant, but that appears to have been an alias.
McConkie said they’re asking for cooperation from the city, that charges be filed against Alder and a full investigation into what went wrong, so changes can be made for future protests.
