Photo: Getty Images
Anonymous law enforcement sources have called for an investigation into two white Utah officers who failed to administer aid to a Black man as he bled out from a stabbing, Fox 13 reports.
Salt Lake City police officers Ian Anderson and Jadah Brown responded to 911 calls of a domestic dispute on Nove 13, 2020 that resulted in Ryan Outlaw being stabbed by his girlfriend Fernanda Tobar and in need of medical assistance.
27 minutes after the 911 call, police arrived at the scene as Outlaw rocked back and forth on the floor of an apartment elevator with a knife wound in his chest.
Body camera footage shows Anderson and Brown, both medically trained officers, standing over the stabbing victim covered in blood for nearly eight minutes as Tobar begged them to administer aid.
“Ryan, crawl out of the elevator, OK?” Anderson said per the body camera footage. “Hey, come this way.”
“You’re not doing anything about it!” Tobar yelled at the officers.
“What am I supposed to do?” Anderson responded. “We have medical coming.”
“Why are you letting him just lay like that?” Tobar questioned.
“We’re not paramedics,” Anderson said. “We have medical on the way.”
“Help!” Outlaw said as his girlfriend and officers went back and forth. “I can’t breathe!”
“Okay, I’ve got medical – they’re right outside,” Brown said.
Paramedics arrived about eight minutes after police got to the scene. Outlaw died 2 hours, 10 minutes after the initial 911 call.
According to ABC 4, Tobar was convicted of manslaughter in the fatal stabbing earlier this year.
However, Anderson and Brown never received disciplinary action.
Brent Weisberg, a spokesperson for Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) Chief Mike Brown, supported the officers' response.
“The women and men of the Salt Lake City Police Department are guardians of our community. They are committed to preserving life,” Weisberg said in a statement. “We understand community members may have questions about how our officers responded to assist Mr. Outlaw. As a police department, we stand by the decisions of our officers… The officers could not allow the elevator doors to close.”
Chris Burbank, the former chief of SLCPD, said he felt the officers' response was insufficient.
“If the elevator closing is so important, pull the person out,” Burbank said. “We do that all the time if the victim is in a roadway.”
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