- Credit: AP Photo/Deseret News, Michelle Tessier
Darrien Hunt, the 22-year-old Black man who was shot by Utah police last week, was shot six times from behind as he was running away, according to an independent autopsy requested by Hunt’s family.
Randall Edwards, an attorney for Hunt’s family, said Hunt was shot six times from behind, which demonstrates that Hunt was running away. Edwards said Hunt died from a bullet that hit him square in the back.
Utah County officials are trying to counter the claim made by Hunt’s family that he was carrying a toy sword when he was shot. Prosecutors said Monday that Hunt lunged at the officers with a real sword that had a 2.5-foot steel blade.
“It wasn’t plastic, it wasn’t wood,” Utah County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Taylor said. “It appears to be a real samurai sword.”
Investigators are talking with witnesses in Saratoga Springs and trying to gather surveillance video from at least three nearby businesses to figure out what happened, Taylor said.
Officials said the two officers involved in the shooting are on administrative leave, per standard protocol.
Susan Hunt says her son was gunned down for no reason and that officers would have acted differently if her biracial son was white.
Police insist, however, that they only fired at Hunt out of self-defense after he first attempted to attack officers.
According to Deseret News, the police were called sometime around 9:40 a.m. Wednesday due to complaints about a “suspicious” man walking near businesses along Redwood Road.
The witnesses said the young man was carrying a “Samurai-type sword.”
“They killed my son because he’s Black,” Susan Hunt said. “No white boy with a little sword would they shoot while he’s running away.”
Hunt is a white woman, but the father of her children is a Black man.
Saratoga Springs is home to Mia Love, former mayor of the city who is trying to become the first black Republican woman ever elected to Congress.
