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SOUTH SALT LAKE — Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder says his office is "devastated" by the deaths of three Unified police officers all within a span of 18 days.
But what has also been extremely hurtful are the rumors that have been circulating on social media about how the officers may have died.
"We're not even able, right now, to deliver notification to their family before the jungle drums get beating and everybody knows about it and all the speculation gets started," he said Monday. "People have to really think before they jump on these keyboards and pump out information they don’t know a thing about. … It’s damn painful."
The string of tragic events began Jan. 25 when Unified police detective Brooks Green died following a "sudden cardiac event" near his home.
On Feb. 2, veteran Unified police detective Brian Holdaway collapsed while in the break room at the sheriff's headquarters in South Salt Lake. Fellow officers administered CPR as they rushed him to a hospital where he died a short time later.
On Saturday, Unified police officer Jon Richey, 52, who also served over 20 years with the Salt Lake City Police Department, was found dead in his home after failing to show up for work.
In addition, two sheriff's office corrections employees have also died during that same time span, Winder said.
Although the investigations into the causes of death for each of the three Unified officers was still ongoing Monday by three separate agencies, Winder said during a press conference: "Three is no indication that any of these deaths is other than natural."
The press conference was held in an attempt to stop the rumors. Winder specifically mentioned that Richey's death is not believed to be a suicide.
The discovery of Richey's body came just a couple of hours before the funeral of Holdaway. Before the department had the chance to properly lay one of its veteran officers to rest, social media was already spreading rumors about how Richey may have died.
"That is hurtful. That is concerning. And it is unnecessary speculation on the part of individuals who, frankly, have little to no information about these very tragic and hurtful circumstances," Winder said.
"When someone gets a Facebook post that their loved one has died at the office and then there's all this speculation associated with it, there's a dramatic impact. Our office is suffering mightily for a variety of reasons. And it is not helped in any way, shape or form by what I would consider to be uninformed speculation and perpetuation of, in some instances, very hurtful speculation," he said.
"Give us the same respect you would give your neighbor. When somebody dies, don’t go get on Facebook. Give it a minute."
Winder cautioned the public not to mistake the ongoing investigations into his officers' deaths as “unnatural or suspicious." Anytime a person collapses or is found deceased with no obvious cause of death and no witnesses, an investigation is conducted.
The sheriff also addressed chatter on social media about what constitutes an in-the-line-of-duty death. According to internal and state guidelines, an officer has to be engaged in strenuous activity related to the officer's duties within 24 hours of that person's death.
Winder does not believe either Brooks, Holdaway, or Richey's death qualifies as dying in the line of duty.
In January 2016, Richey was shot in both legs while engaged in a shootout with the man who had just shot and killed Unified police officer Doug Barney. The suspect, Corey Lee Henderson, was killed during the confrontation.
Winder noted on Monday that "John did experience lingering effects of the shooting. Whether they have any synergy to the natural cause of his death, I do not know, and it would be purely speculation on my part."
If it is determined by the medical examiner's office that the lingering effects of the shooting contributed to Richey's death, Winder is still not sure it would make him eligible for a funeral with full police honors. He said his office has been in discussions with state lawmakers to modify the policy of in-the-line-of-duty deaths. The sheriff compared it to when meth labs were new and the department's narcotics officers would go into homes with those labs unprotected, only to suffer serious health effects in later years from being exposed to toxic chemicals. Winder also compared it to compensation firefighters receive who are exposed to years of hazardous materials.
The difference in compensation between an officers who dies and an officer who dies in the line of duty is "signficant," Winder said. He noted that the department has been doing its best to help and compensate all of the officers' families.
"We're not trying to make one more important than the other," he said.
A peer support group has also been at the sheriff's office helping employees deal with the tragedies, and a family liaison has been assigned to each of the three officers' families.
