The shooting at a "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City was a strange one, all things considered.
I'm not shocked at the possibility of violence at such an event, it's just that it's not very clear cut who was doing what or why. The shooting was committed by two "peacekeepers" who were supposedly protecting protestors, but the person they shot wasn't a danger. It gets weirder and weirder.
In part, it gets weirder because there's so much we don't know that could change everything, which is leading some to call it "legally nuanced."
A man is dead. One man who was arrested is now out of jail. And the man who allegedly shot three bullets — including the one that killed “innocent bystander” Arthur “Afa” Ah Loo, according to police — is cooperating with law enforcement but is not in custody.
Based on what’s been reported so far in the wake of the chaotic shooting during a “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City earlier this month, Utah gun law experts say the tragic situation is looking increasingly legally nuanced. And they say it’s possible any justice for Ah Loo and his family may be more likely to come from a civil lawsuit than a criminal case — but that remains to be seen.
“There was, from what it sounds like, a misunderstanding, which led to extremely tragic consequences,” said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council and a Utah gun law lobbyist.
According to Salt Lake City police, the shooting during the June 14 protest happened after two men, who described themselves to police as “peacekeepers,” confronted 24-year-old Arturo Gamboa, who was openly carrying an AR-15 style rifle during the protest. One of the men, reportedly part of the event organizer’s volunteer security team, told police he thought Gamboa was acting suspiciously, which led him to fire three shots from a handgun, hitting Gamboa in the back but also inadvertently striking Ah Loo, who was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Shortly after the shooting, police arrested Gamboa, and he was booked into jail for investigation of murder. Police say, however, that Gamboa did not fire his rifle, and his attorney said his rifle was not loaded. The two “peacekeepers,” who wore high-visability vests, were initially detained by police, but were released after being questioned. Police said the man who fired the three shots is cooperating with investigators.
Last week, Gamoba was released from jail after the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office conducted a preliminary review of evidence. While the investigation continues, charges have not been filed in the case, against either Gamboa or the unnamed armed security volunteer.
Now, Gamboa not having a loaded rifle and not firing is irrelevant in and of itself. What matters is whether he was in a threatening position with the rifle. If he was, then he was right to be treated as a threat. That's especially true if "unloaded" simply means an empty magazine in the mag well. No one has time to determine if there are rounds in the magazine.
Even if it weren't, a round in the chamber is still enough to kill someone.
Plus, if I'm going to treat every gun as if it's loaded from a safety perspective, I see no reason to change that when someone else is holding the gun. Just sayin'.
Now, with that said, Ah Loo wasn't the threat. There's no version of this that I've heard that says he was. He was just there, exercising his right to free speech, when he got shot by people because of what someone else did.
The article mentions a civil trial, and I think that's likely to be a slam dunk, though it's unlikely that the "peacekeeper" has enough to pay out anything in a settlement. It's also unlikely the organizers of the protest have anything, either. Neither does Gamboa, I suspect.
But for criminal charges, I still think Gamboa was likely responsible for the whole thing if he were holding the weapon in a way that could reasonably be considered threatening.
For example, at low ready? Very possible.
Did he point it at anyone? Then, most definitely his fault.
Just carrying it at something like collapsed low ready? Probably not.
So there may be a lot of nuance here, but there are also a lot of questions we don't seem to have answers to just yet, and those answers could change a lot.
But then again, maybe the answers won't really give us anything except more questions.
Honestly, while I probably disagree with everyone involved on 90 percent of the issues, at a minimum, I'm still going to follow this one because I want to understand just what happened, where things went wrong, and try to learn from it much like I did with the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting. Luckily, that one had a ton of video so it wasn't difficult. This one seems to be different.
It's a story to follow, though.
