A 46-year-old man who allegedly shot at a woman and her friend while they were taking a walk in Lakepoint during the early morning hours of Sept. 9, has been released from jail.

The man was first arrested on Sept. 9 and released on bail on Sept. 12. On Sept. 17, a warrant of rearrest was signed by Robert L. Clegg, Tooele County’s deputy attorney.  The man was held in the Tooele County Jail until Tuesday, Oct. 15, when he appeared before a judge. During the hearing, the man and his council requested release.

“Our [the Tooele County Attorney’s] office objected to him being released due to the crimes alleged and the safety of our community. However, the court made the decision to release him over our objections,” Clegg said.

County attorney office officials are currently unable to comment on why the court made the decision to release the man over their objections, Clegg said.

In addition to the man being released, the case caused Tooele County Sheriff’s Office officials to retrain their dispatch team after a dispatcher acted in error during the initial call.

On Sept. 9, Heidi Sloan 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] weren’t together, we both called 911. I told the dispatcher, ‘I can’t talk because we are being shot at.’”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

“There was some lack of communication and procedural issues that weren’t followed,” said Brian White, Tooele County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy. “We’ve 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.”

White went on to say that staff have now been retrained.

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