The medical examiner's office was conducting autopsies Monday on the bodies of two men: one who was shot by a police officer, the other the victim of a beating, a suicide or an accident.
Ricardo L. Zaragoza, 31, 4566 W. 4985 South, was shot to death by Salt Lake police officer Zane Smith, a member of the department's SWAT unit.Police were also investigating the death of a transient who was found with a severe head injury outside the Salt Lake Art Center.
The shooting incident began about 3 a.m., when Zaragoza's brother called police to report that Zaragoza, despondent over family problems, was armed with a handgun and was threatening himself and others, said Lt. Norm Thompson.
Police responded to the brother's house, 2818 S. Highland Drive, but Zaragoza was not there.
Moments later, officers spotted Zaragoza's pickup truck in the nearby Brickyard Mall. Zaragoza fled at a high rate of speed, followed by police officers. He drove into the driveway of his brother's home and parked the truck near the house.
When he got out of his truck, he was carrying a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun and making suicidal threats, telling officers they would have to shoot him to get him to surrender, Thompson said.
During the next 45 minutes, Zaragoza fired at least seven rounds. None of the rounds appeared to have been aimed at any officer, Thompson said.
The SWAT unit surrounded the house as other occupants of the home were evacuated.
After talking with a police negotiator, Zaragoza threw a box of ammunition, the gun's magazine and the gun onto the front lawn.
"(Zaragoza) then exited the home and walked onto the lawn with his hands on his head and began talking with the officer."
Disregarding the instructions of officer Kim Herburg, who had walked into the open unarmed, Zaragoza knelt down by the gun and picked it up.
Herburg took cover as Zaragoza apparently pointed the gun at the officer.
At that point, Smith, believing that Herburg was in danger, fired one shot with his 9mm semiautomatic handgun.
Zaragoza, who was hit in the chest, was dead at the scene.
Smith, a three-year veteran with the department and a one-year member of the SWAT unit, has been placed on administrative leave with pay, pending investigation by the department's shooting review board and the Salt Lake County attorney's office.
About 7 a.m., while detectives were still investigating the shooting, a Salt Palace security guard discovered a badly injured man outside the north door of the Salt Lake Art Center, 20 S. West Temple.
The man - described as a black transient, about 30 years old - was unconscious and bleeding profusely from the head. Paramedics tried to revive him but he was dead on arrival at Holy Cross Hospital, said Lt. Bill Shelton.
Although police are treating the victim's death as a homicide, Shelton said it's possible he fell or jumped from the roof of the art center.
The man had two pieces of identification. "But we don't know if either is correct."
Shelton said the victim had recently been removed from Crossroads Mall for trespassing.