Deputies shoot, kill Utah man holding 2 children hostage, police say

WEST HAVEN, Utah (KSL.com) — Weber County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man Monday after they say he took two children hostage with an “edged weapon.”

Deputies responded to calls from an apartment at 2265 S. 1100 West in West Haven that a family member was “threatening self-harm and possibly under the influence of drugs,” the Weber County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The subject of the call was “acting erratically” when deputies arrived in the midst of “a chaotic domestic scene.” According to police, the man was holding two children hostage with an “edged weapon,” but attempts to deescalate the situation failed.

When the man began making “statements of harm” to one of the children, the statement says two deputies fired at the man, killing him.

The children were not harmed, and everyone was removed from the apartment while investigators from the Weber County Attorney’s Office were on scene conducting their own investigation into the incident.

Both deputies who were involved in the shooting are now on administrative leave, as is standard practice in a police shooting.