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Attorney Says Utah Police Department Keeps Changing Story About Officer Pulling Gun On 10-Year-Old Black Boy

Karra Porter, the family’s attorney, also fears the Woods Cross PD will only give the county attorney the officer's account of events.

An attorney for the mother of the Black 10-year-old boy who had a gun pointed at his head by a Utah police officer says the police department is not being consistent with their story.

On Thursday, June 6, a Woods Cross police officer was in pursuit of two suspects involved in a possible shooting when he encountered DJ Hrubes, 10. Without asking any questions, the officer drew his weapon and pointed it at the child. Eventually, DJ’s mother, Jerri, came running outside to protect her son.

At a news conference on June 10, Jerri again called for an investigation into the incident, which she believes was racially motivated.

Karra Porter, a Salt Lake attorney for the Hrubes family, also appeared at the news conference with Jerri and said she has now heard four versions of the story from Woods Cross police, reported Desert News Utah.

"I'm hoping they'll settle on one soon," she said.

Although police Chief Chad Soffe apologized to DJ and Jerri Hrubes, he also defended the actions of his officer.

"I'm not going to stand here and second-guess the actions of my officer. It's a tough thing," he said.

Soffe says he asked the Davis County Attorney's Office to "review" the incident to be "totally transparent and to alleviate some of the concerns brought up by the media and other people in the public. 

“We're not investigating the actions. We're reviewing them to see if there's any changes we might be able to make in our policies," he said.

However, Porter said she’s worried the information being given to Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings will be solely from the officer’s account. Porter hopes the county attorney works to get to the real truth of the situation.

"But if all they're doing is saying here is the set of facts that we want you to assume because this is what our officer says now, obviously I have a real problem with that," Porter told reporters at the press conference.

Jeanetta Williams, president of NAACP Tri-State Conference for Idaho, Nevada and Utah, also supports an independent investigation, not just a review of police protocol. "I think an investigation would maybe take it a little bit further into looking exactly step-by-step everything that occurred," she told Desert News.

On Monday, June 10 organizers of Black Lives Matter Utah called for the officer to be fired.

“They have yet to tell the same story twice,” organizer Josianne Petit told reporters about the Woods Cross Police Department.

In an earlier statement, the Woods Cross Police Department said they were searching for a Hispanic suspect and another suspect, but they would not say if the other suspect was Black.

When reporters asked Soffe if the officer targeted DJ because he was Black, Soffe said, "The officer said he matched the description that had been given to him earlier."

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