Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake City officers shoot and kill man with gun

Crime » Police say victim, 20, made 'threatening movements,' failed to follow commands.
By Lindsay Whitehurst
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 05/01/2010 05:51:07 PM MDT

Twenty-year-old Favian Martinez was looking forward to starting his new job, his mother said.
"Last night, he was talking about when he got his check, he was going to fix up his apartment," Manuela Palomares said. He was in training at a medical insurance call center in Midvale, and wanted a nice place for his girlfriend and their three daughters, ages 6 months, 1 and 3.
Martinez was shot and killed by Salt Lake City police about 2 a.m. Saturday. Officers were responding to a 911 call of a man brandishing a gun and making threats, said Salt Lake City police Sgt. Robin Snyder.
When they arrived, Martinez ran. They caught up with him in front of an apartment building at 245 E. South Temple, but Martinez did not follow officers' commands, Snyder said.
Martinez made "threatening movements," Snyder said. "The officers had to take action." Two officers fired several shots. Martinez was taken to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries.
No officers were injured in the shooting. The two officers are on paid administrative leave, as per department policy, until the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office completes an investigation. Their names were not released.
A search of court records showed Martinez pleaded guilty to one count of attempted aggravated assault and one count of giving false personal information in September.
Several bullet holes could be seen Saturday in the glass doors of the apartment
building in front of which Martinez was shot.
One round went through the door and pierced the wall of a basement utility room, said building resident Elizabeth DeBroux.
Her roommate heard officers yelling for the man to put his hands up, and then heard several shots, she said. DeBroux, 33, left the apartment and saw a bunched-up sweatshirt and blood on the steps outside. Martinez's gun was on a nearby stoop.
"I think Salt Lake is a growing city and things happen -- not usually on my doorstep," DeBroux said.
Martinez had been with a former girlfriend in a car when a gun went off, his mother said. The former girlfriend called police, she said.
He ran from police because there was a warrant out for his arrest for driving with a suspended license, and failure to appear in court, and he didn't want to lose his job, she said.
"They didn't have to shoot him that many times," Palomares said. "I don't think they had to go to that level to kill him."
He loved playing with his daughters, and joking with his two younger brothers and a sister, said Palomares.
"He still wasn't really an adult," she said. He listened to rap music and old Motown hits, and loved going out with his friends, she said.
As they mourn, his family is trying to afford funeral expenses.
"He wasn't perfect. But he loved his family, and he loved his girlfriend," Palomares said. "He will be missed by all of us."
lwhitehurst@sltrib.com