SALT LAKE CITY — The father of a man whom Ogden police killed outside his home last month calls the fatal shooting an “assassination.”

“They came to execute someone. They came to kill someone that night,” Juan Mercado said Monday at a news conference in his lawyer’s office. “They were maniacs the way they were shooting.”

Police had no reason to use deadly force against 26-year-old Jovany Mercado-Bedolla, a father of two children, Salt Lake attorney Bob Sykes said. While Mercado-Bedolla did not comply with officers’ commands to drop the pocket knife he had in his hand as he walked down his driveway, he did not run toward or lunge at the officers who were a “safe distance away,” he said.

“He didn’t throw it down as ordered, but that doesn’t justify a death sentence,” Sykes said.

Sykes said he held the news conference with Juan and Rosa Mercado to get their side of the story out. He usually files lawsuits in these types of cases, but said he’s looking to settle with Ogden police outside of court.

Ogden Police Chief Randy Watt told the Ogden City Council last week that an internal affairs investigation found the officers acted within the law and within police policy. A Weber County Attorney’s Office investigation isn’t complete, but Watt said that Weber County Attorney Chris Allred has “verbally cleared” the officers.

Watt told the council that he expects his officers to follow their training to use deadly force when they believe their lives or the lives of others are at risk.

“No officer of mine need wait to be bashed with a rock, cut or stabbed with a knife, shot at or shot in order to determine whether they should take action, and I will support them to my grave,” he said.

An Ogden police spokesman said Monday that the department had nothing to add to Watt’s earlier comments. Allred did not return a voicemail left on his office phone for comment on the status of the county’s investigation.

Police were originally called to the 3100 block of Gramercy Avenue just before 9 p.m. on Aug. 16 by a person who said they were having a party in their yard when Mercado-Bedolla approached several guests in the driveway while holding a knife. While police were en route, dispatchers were informed that he was in a carport looking inside vehicles.

Watt said about 10 seconds passed from the time Mercado-Bedolla “flipped open” the knife and “aggressively” approached the officers. He said the officers retreated as far as they could into parked cars across the street and told him to drop the knife. Mercado-Bedolla’s actions left police with no other option than to shoot, Watt said.

Sykes showed the previously released police body camera video as well as the Mercados’ home surveillance video Monday. The Mercados did not look at the screen as the videos played.

The home video shows Mercado-Bedolla from behind walking down the carport toward the four officers positioned on the other side of a slightly open driveway gate with flashlights shining and guns drawn. The video shows the porch lights turning on. Mario Arras, another attorney for the family, said Rosa Mercado flipped the switch to see what was going on outside.

“That’s mom seeing her kid being blown away,” Arras said.

The Mercados said they don’t know why their son had a knife or why he didn’t put it down. Mercado-Bedolla was disoriented and maybe had taken drugs, Sykes said.

Mercado-Bedolla has been convicted of mainly misdemeanor drug possession, intoxication and possession of drug paraphernalia several times since 2017 and most recently in April, according to court records.

Sykes said Mercado-Bedolla didn’t comply with officers’ commands to drop the knife for five to seven seconds before they shot him. He attributed their actions to “panic” or “bad training.”

“This is a responsible Ogden family. They didn’t deserve to have their son killed this way,” Sykes said.

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Mercado, a Union Pacific Railroad foreman, said no parent should have to go through what he and his wife have. He has regularly attended Ogden City Council meetings to advocate for new police policies. He said he doesn’t want to see anyone else killed.

Also since the shooting, Mercado said police have routinely driven or parked in front of his house. Officers also are acting as crossing guards at a nearby elementary school, which he said they have never done in the past.

“Why are they harassing us?” Mercado asked. "Why?”

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