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Police Respond In Force To Scam Emergency Call

Last month, the Park City Police Department responded to a 911 call claiming a person had been shot in a house in a Prospector neighborhood. The caller was anonymous and police say it was a dangerous prank. 

Park City Police Chief, Wade Carpenter says the call came in the early morning hours of June 14th. They later determined it was a call from an unknown number in Texas. When officers arrived at the house on Cooke Drive. Carpenter says there were three Hispanic men sitting in a car outside the home.

“We responded there. Obviously, officers secured the people in the car. I don’t believe anybody was arrested. Nobody was taken into custody other than temporarily secured to make sure they weren’t involved in it.”

Carpenter says a similar call came in during Sundance last winter claiming a man in a home in the Colony had killed his wife and would blow up the house. He says this event was also a scam call.

“They’d done nothing wrong. Victims really of a terrible, terrible prank, for lack of a better term.”
 
In this latest incident, Cooke Drive resident, Owen Weinman says he was going to bed when the Park City Police arrived sometime around 1 or 2 AM. He says what he observed was disheartening.

“And then, all of a sudden, the street in front of my house flooded with police lights and screaming. And I looked outside and there were about maybe 15 to 20 police officers that were running down the street after a man with their weapons drawn, I do believe. One, woman officer was screaming at someone to get out of a car. Swearing. Saying, you know, pretty obscene things. I don’t believe any of the people they were arresting, spoke any English.

Weinman says he saw a team of about five officers take people out of the house and put them into patrol cars.

“I don’t recall exactly how the conversation went but I remember asking what was going on. He told me to go back inside. I told him that I didn’t agree with what I was seeing. That none of these people were being read any rights. But they were being arrested. But, no one there spoke Spanish to read them their rights in the language they understood. And, he just kept telling me to go inside.”

Weinman says he thought if he was out there during the incident, the officers would be more respectful to his Hispanic neighbors.

“It’s kind of obvious how things turn out when there’s no white people involved. I just hoped that maybe my presence there would, I don’t know, convince them to conduct themselves in a police-like manner. These officers were screaming at these people. Like blaring at them. Treating them very disrespectfully.”

Weinman says some of his neighbors are not distinguishing this incident from a previous ICE raid on his street.

“They believe that this was kind of an excuse to raid one of their houses.”

Park City Police Captain, Phil Kirk says there was one Spanish speaking officer participating in the June 14th incident. He says all occupants of the house were detained and interviewed in Spanish by Officer Carillo. Kirk explains when there’s an indication that a gun was used to shoot someone, there will be a lot of shouting of commands and guns will be drawn.

“Individuals that they were interacting with were occupants of vehicles and they were pulling up their vehicles and shouting commands to show your hands and exit the vehicle and those kinds of things. And that’s going to cause an extra level of disturbance when you have something like that occurring. And you know, upwards of 10 officers.

KPCW has not obtained a copy of the full police report. A government records request is in progress. 
 
 

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