'Drop what you have and just come talk to us,' police order before fatal shooting
by Pat Reavy ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- West Valley police attempted peaceful negotiation with Sebastian Cerda-Monti before shooting.
- Cerda-Monti ran at officers with silver objects, prompting 10-12 shots fired.
- West Jordan police will investigate the incident; Cerda-Monti had recent convictions.
WEST VALLEY CITY — For approximately three minutes, West Valley police attempted to get Sebastian Enrique Cerda-Monti to peacefully come out of a small building in the parking lot of a hotel.
"Hey, drop what you have and just come talk to us. There's no need to be aggressive," the officer calmly tells Cerda-Monti.
But after giving him several commands to drop what was in his hands and come out, Cerda-Monti suddenly bursts out of the shed and runs directly at the officer while waving two unknown silver objects, about 2 to 3-feet long, in each hand.
The officer who ordered Cerda-Monti to come out fired 10 to 12 shots, according to body camera video. Despite medical aid administered immediately by officers, Cerda-Monti, 40, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Tuesday, the West Valley City Police Department released body camera footage of the Oct. 25 incident. That morning, an employee of the Marriott's TownePlace Suites hotel, 5473 West High Market Dr., called 911 to report they found a man inside a storage building in the parking lot.
"Somebody's in there right now, and when we try to go in our storage space threatened us, like, to shoot us," an employee tells emergency dispatchers in a recording of the 911 call released Tuesday.
Four West Valley officers responded to the scene. On Tuesday, body camera video recorded by one of those officers, the one who ended up firing shots, was released.
"Hey man, come out and talk to us," the officer is heard calling out to the man inside the building. "S'up man, man? West Valley police, show us your hands. Hey just come out and talk to us with your hands empty."
As the officer backs up, he tells dispatchers on his police radio, "He has like an iron rod in his hands." The officer then sprays pepper spray into the building. It was not known if the OC spray had any effect on Cerda-Monti.
When the shed door swings open and Cerda-Monti is heard swearing at officers in response, the tension level goes up. For a couple of minutes, the officer encourages the man to come out of the small building, and gradually becomes more forceful in his orders.
"Drop what you have, come out with your hands, do it now," the officer says, "Look man, this isn't getting any better. Drop what you have in your hands do it now….Dude, what are you doing? Quit peeking like that."
In body camera video, the officer is seen holding his gun. Another officer to his left also has a gun drawn and an officer to his right has a Taser drawn. A fourth officer is not in the camera view.
West Valley Police Chief Colleen Jacobs said the incident unfolded very quickly.
"This type of incident to an officer is very personal and affects them deeply," she said of the shooting.
A critical incident team from West Jordan police will conduct an officer shooting investigation and turn their findings over to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office who will determine if the officer was legally justified in using deadly force.
According to court records, Cerda-Monti was convicted just a week earlier of mail theft and failing to stop for police and sentenced to time already served in jail since his arrest.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.