SALT LAKE CITY — The family of a volunteer firefighter shot and killed during a standoff with police is demanding information from the Utah Attorney General's Office to help them with their civil suit.
Elizabeth Wood, who is representing the estate of Brian Wood, is seeking documents concerning the investigation into the fatal shooting of her husband on Sept. 22, 2008, which she originally requested through the Government Records and Access Management Act. Both her GRAMA request and her appeal were denied by the attorney general's office.
Brian Wood was fatally shot following a 12-hour standoff with police in Farmington. After allegedly beating and raping his wife, police surrounded Wood as he sat in a pickup truck in his driveway. They got him out of the truck using tear gas and pepper spray. Once outside the truck, he was shot with rubber bullets, pepper balls and a Taser multiple times.
But when Wood fired the gun he was holding, officers returned fire with their guns.
In September 2010, Wood's family filed a civil lawsuit against numerous state agencies, claiming the shot that killed Brian Wood came after he was already on the ground.
On Sept, 28, 2011, the family asked for documents, photographs, ballistic testing results and other records from the Utah Attorney General's Office concerning the incident.
"The documents requested by plaintiffs will likely provide answers to a number of disputed facts that are at issue," according to court documents. "The documents requested also seek investigative reports from various law enforcement agencies and officers directly involved ..."
In a new complaint filed this week, the Wood family claims the attorney general's office did not "appropriately identify" the reasons their initial GRAMA request was denied, and did not identify the documents it claims are protected in their subsequent denial of the appeal, according to court records.
The attorney general's office said in its appeal that the requested documents had been "classified as protected" because the investigation "remains active and ongoing."
The Woods contend in court records that they need documents and reports from the attorney general's office because they believe "parts of the A.G.'s report are inaccurate and do not reflect the physical and testimony evidence in the record" and that the documents may contain "facts not yet revealed in this civil case and which may only come from" the requested documents.
Brian Wood's family claims his death was avoidable.
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