SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah tailor filed a lawsuit against law enforcement agencies in the state over officers firing nearly 200 rounds into his shop.
Thaer Mahdi said he has not recovered from trauma caused by the barrage of police bullets that ripped through his shop a year ago, The Deseret News reported Wednesday.
Mahdi is suing the Salt Lake City Police Department, Unified Police Department and Utah Highway Patrol for trauma he claimed to have suffered.
The Iraq-born U.S. citizen was working at Princess Alterations and Leather Work April 8, 2019, when a pickup truck driven by Harold Vincent Robinson crashed into his store.
Robinson led police on a car chase through the Salt Lake Valley and fired at least 50 shots from the moving truck. No bystanders were struck. Police killed Robinson outside the tailor shop.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court claimed Mahdi’s inventory, machinery, clients’ property, and business were destroyed by 196 shots fired by police.
The lawsuit accused police of “groupthink,” claiming they had no regard for anyone who may have been inside the building.
“It is nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Mahdi himself was not hit by a bullet,” the lawsuit said.
Mahdi has suffered “psychological issues” including inability to work and sleep and a “persistent, annoying, and entirely disruptive buzzing sound inside of his head,” the lawsuit said.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill found in February that 10 Salt Lake police officers, three Utah Highway Patrol troopers and two Unified police officers were legally justified in the use of deadly force when they took aim at the driver.
