A woman and her friend who were taking a walk early in the morning on September 9 said they were shot at by a 46-year-old man. Police said they are currently retraining dispatchers who acted in error.

Heidi Sloan said she and a friend were walking near Blue Moon Drive in Lakepoint when they thought they had run into another neighborhood couple, but they later found out it was a man having a mental breakdown.

“As we approached the T [in the road], we could hear talking at first, but that talking turned into yelling,” Sloan said. “We [my friend and I] both looked at each other, panicked, then he [the guy who was having a mental breakdown] yelled, ‘Stop it. I’ll shoot. I’m serious. I’ll shoot you.’ We both ran in front of a truck and trailer to hide, as it was still dark out. We couldn’t make out what the guy looked like, but before we ran, we saw him raise what looked like a rifle. His yelling got louder, and I didn’t feel safe in front of the truck, so I ran up to the house where the truck was parked, while my friend stayed in front of the truck.”

Afraid herself and her friend may be shot, Sloan said she tried to open the door to the house, but it was locked. Sloan then began pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell. While she was knocking on the door, the man allegedly fired a gun at Sloan and her friend.

“I dove to the ground and hid behind a pillar on the porch,” Sloan said. “Because we [my friend and I] weren’t together, we both called 911. I told the dispatcher, ‘I can’t talk because we are being shot at.’”

The dispatcher asked Sloan where she and her friend were located and said they were already aware of their location, according to Sloan. Sloan then told the dispatcher that the man had already fired a shot at them during a call that lasted for approximately 18 seconds.

“The dispatcher did not ask if anyone had been hit, if we were ok, or try to keep me on the line until help arrived,” Sloan commented.

After the call with dispatch, Sloan called her husband, who works at Kennecott, and her husband called their neighbor. Sloan’s friend also called the neighbors of the house where she and Sloan were hiding.

“The yelling stopped and the neighbor answered the door, so we ran into her house,” Sloan said. “Shortly after this, my neighbor—the one my husband called—and my husband arrived at the scene, but still no deputies. My husband went home to get his gun and began looking for the guy.”

A Tooele County Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived on scene around 6:24 a.m. with no flashing lights or urgency because dispatch never relayed to officers that there was an active shooter on scene, Sloan said.

Sloan’s husband reportedly found the man and called dispatch at 6:30 a.m. to inform them that he was holding the man on the ground. Later, Sloan found out that the couple she and her friend occasionally see on their morning route had encountered the man earlier that morning and had also called dispatch.

During an interview with a deputy, Sloan’s husband informed the officer that the suspect did not have his weapon on him when he was detained.

“We decided to see if we could find his [the suspect’s] gun while waiting to be interviewed,” Sloan said. “We ended up finding an empty clip around the area where he shot at us. Down the road a little further, we found another clip and the gun with a clip in it. In total, we found five clips. Each clip held 30 bullets. The gun was wrapped in a white towel, which is why we think we were able to see him raise it. We also believe the gun wasn’t able to eject the casings because of the towel, so he switched clips to continue firing, not realizing the weapon was actually jammed.”

Prior to the incident, Sloan said the man had wrecked his vehicle in the area.

The suspect was arrested that same day and held on a $5,000 bond.

According to a probable cause statement written by the arresting officer, the man was arrested on two counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony.

The PC statement recounts officers responding to the location on a report of an intoxicated person. It also states that a second caller reported that the male had fired a gun at the time of the incident.

“I arrived and spoke with the two victims, who stated they were on a run when they heard the male yell, ‘Stop! I’m going to shoot,’ and I saw the male holding something, but it was too dark to tell exactly what he was holding,” the officer wrote in the PC statement.

The officer reported that Sloan and her friend told him that they had heard two gunshots that they believed were going off in their direction. The officer said he located the male two blocks down, running from the Tooele City Police Department, who were “after him.” The male identified himself and said he was running from the police because they had raided his house that night, according to the PC statement.

The officer reportedly asked the man about shooting the gun, and he stated that he did shoot two shots from a 9 mm rifle, but it was just to ward “them” off.

The officer reported that the suspect had extremely dilated pupils and was covered in heavy amounts of perspiration. He was also discussing delusions and was not in a normal mental state, according to the pc statement.

The officer said that the suspect believed people were there to get him, and he was in the area in order to avoid “them.” Several bottles of medication full of a variety of mixed pills not matching what was listed on the bottles were also located in the area.

Sloan said that officers did not perform a drug or alcohol toxicology test.

On September 12, the suspect made bail and was released with the promise to appear in court in October. On September 17, a warrant of rearrest was signed by Robert L. Clegg, Tooele County’s deputy attorney.

“There is substantial evidence to support the charges with which the defendant has been charged, and they are felony offenses,” reads the document. “Furthermore, the defendant’s actions show clear and convincing evidence that he is dangerous to the community.”

Sloan said that the suspect was rearrested after she made a Facebook post about the incident.

The suspect is being held without bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, October 29.

Once the dust settled, Sloan set up an appointment to meet with Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer and another lieutenant from the department.

“They said the dispatch was pretty much where it went wrong initially,” Sloan said. “One of their veteran dispatchers did not handle the calls as she should have and was very dismissive to everyone that called in. She also failed to inform the deputies that they were actually responding to an active shooter situation, not just a DUI, as she told them. They said if she had handled this correctly, all law enforcement agencies should have responded, not just a few Tooele County deputies.”

Representatives from the Tooele County Sheriff’s Office have also admitted fault and are working to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.

“There was some lack of communication and procedural issues that weren’t followed,” said Brian White, Tooele County Sheriff’s Office chief. “I’m retraining everyone this week. We’ve also done an internal investigation as to why [this happened]. Really, it was just a lack of communication… Our dispatch center actually failed to update our responding departments.”

“I’m not against police officers,” Sloan said. “Maybe we need to advocate for more or a higher wage so we have enough or more training for dispatchers. This shouldn’t happen to anybody. It’s so hard to understand how so many mistakes were made.”

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