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West Valley Officer Shoots Knife-wielding Man in Draper Neighborhood

Tim Slover
The crime scene at Cranberry Hill, a Draper neighborhood

A West Valley police officer shot and killed a man in a Draper neighborhood on Wednesday morning.

Draper Deputy Chief of Police John Eining says West Valley police officer Jason Vincent, who lives in Draper, was on his way to work when he discovered a man slumped over in a black SUV. Vincent called for backup, and two Draper officers arrived on the scene, as well as an off-duty West Valley Sergeant.

“This was really suspicious—as the officer was heading to work, he notices this, stops over to see if he can assist. One thing led to another,” he says. “An arrest is going to be made for a narcotics violation.”

Eining says it was sometime after that point that the man escaped from the officers, ran back into the car, and pulled out a knife.

“I’m not sure where the knife came from. It was probably somewhere in the front cabin of his car—because the suspect was sitting in the car when the struggles ensued. So the officers are attempting to get him back out of the car to effect the arrest, and that’s when the knife was produced.”

Eining says that during the struggle, Vincent fired an unknown number of shots and killed the suspect. He did not have a body camera. But one of the Draper officers did, and it was on at the time. The footage hasn’t been released and the man killed in the shooting remains unidentified. Officer Vincent was involved in a shooting in December 2013, and was cleared. The Draper Police Department is leading the investigation.  

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