Utah Highway Patrol trooper 'justified' in wounding active shooter inside liquor store
by Pat Reavy ksl · KSL.comEstimated read time: 2-3 minutes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Jeremy Matthews was justified in shooting Tyler Traveon Mhaka on Feb. 26.
- Mhaka was actively shooting at a man inside a Utah State Liquor Store in Taylorsville.
- Matthews returned fire and detained Mhaka outside. Mhaka faces attempted murder charges.
TAYLORSVILLE — An off-duty Utah Highway Patrol trooper who shot a man who was actively shooting at a third man inside a Utah State Liquor Store was justified in firing his gun, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office announced Friday.
UHP Sgt. Jeremy Matthews was legally justified in using deadly force against Tyler Traveon Mhaka on Feb. 26, DA Sim Gill said.
On that day, a man was stopped at a red light at 3500 South and 2700 West, waiting to turn right. The car behind him "kept honking his horn," according to charging documents, but the man says he couldn't move because of pedestrians in the road. Still, the driver behind him kept honking.
The victim made a hand gesture toward the other driver, Mhaka, before turning into a Utah State Liquor Store at 4455 S. 2700 West.
As the man began walking into the store, Mhaka pulled up and "started firing a gun at (him)," according to the charges. The victim ran into the liquor store, and Mhaka followed while "actively firing his gun." The man suffered gunshot wounds to his arm, back and right leg, the charges state, but survived.
Matthews, who was already in the liquor store, "returned fire from just inside the store," Gill's report states. Mhaka dropped his gun in the entry and ran.
"Sgt. Matthews pursued Mr. Mhaka into the parking lot, detained him on the ground and called 911," according to the report.
An investigation determined that Matthews fired up to eight times. A total of 14 shell casings were found both inside and outside the store. Mhaka was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound and later charged in the 3rd District Court with attempted murder, a first-degree felony.
Mhaka is scheduled to be back in court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday,
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.
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Pat Reavy
Pat Reavy interned with KSL in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL or Deseret News since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.