Yes, he carried a toy sword in the streets of Utah. But was that a crime punishable by death? Wait. Lemme ask that question this way. Was carrying a toy sword a crime punishable by an execution squad, firing and killing the victim, hitting him in the back as he ran for his life?
That was the outcome for Darrien Hunt when he walked a street in Utah with the sword – in Utah, that is not a crime – and the Utah police disposed of Mr. Hunt as if he were a rabid animal.
And now this: It was ruled that the officers who took Darrien’s life, did nothing wrong.
Back in September, two Saratoga Springs police officers fired a total of seven shots, Utah County Attorney Jeff R. Buhman told reporters, hitting Darrien Hunt, 22, six times — at least once in the back as he ran away. Buhman’s office investigated the Sept. 10 incident for nearly two months.
Buhman told reporters in a televised news conference that the officers had stopped to talk to Hunt, who was carrying the sword in public — which is not a crime in Utah — and that Hunt lunged “abruptly and without apparent provocation.”
The officers opened fire and may have wounded Hunt, who fled with the officers in pursuit. One of them, Cpl. Matthew Schauerhamer, shot Hunt from behind because he feared that Hunt would attack other people, Buhman said.
The shooting, Buhman decided, “was reasonable given Mr. Hunt’s prior unreasonable” attack on the officers.
Hunt was a resident of Saratoga Springs, which is about 35 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Hunt’s family rejected the county attorney’s decision and promised to file a civil lawsuit over the shooting.
