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ROY -- Police say an officer had no choice but to open fire on a man who confronted them during a drug raid at a Roy home Thursday night. The 45-year-old man died after officers shot him.
Police say when officers entered the home, the man inside threatened an officer with a golf club.
"That suspect had a club, had it raised above his head, went towards the officer in an attacking motion," says Roy Police Chief Greg Whinham. "Had the officer not made a decision and taken action at that moment that he did, there would have been grave results."
The officer fired at the man, killing him. That officer is currently being questioned about the incident.
The shooting occurred just before 10 p.m. Thursday at a home near 5900 South and 2600 West in Roy. A joint drug task force had been conducting an on-going investigation there for several weeks.
We've always kind of suspected that something was going on there.
–Brandi Hamblin
Police had information that drugs would be at the house Thursday night, so they served a search warrant just as a vehicle was leaving the house. They say when they entered the home and confronted the man inside, the shooting suddenly went down.
Whinham says, "One of the members of the house came toward one of the officers in a manner which threatened the officer. The officers had to use deadly force to subdue the suspect. The suspect has died and we're just beginning the investigation."
Neighbors say they heard multiple gunshots coming from the home, then saw the neighborhood fill with flashing lights and marked police cars.
One neighbor, Brandi Hamblin, says she's seen police watching the home for the past few weeks. She says in the past year, police have been to the home multiple times.
"We've been suspecting that for a long time, that things were going on there that shouldn't be, you know, drugs," she says. "We've seen a lot of people drive up quickly and leave fast, things like that. And there are always lots of cars at that house."
Tyler Petersen also lives nearby. He says it was only a matter of time before something major went down.
"We kind of knew what was going on over there in the first place because of all the traffic that was going through there," he says.
Police say they were specifically looking for drugs like heroin and methamphetamine at the home, but it's unclear whether they found drugs after the shooting. Police want to wrap up the investigation into the fatal shooting before they continue with the search warrant at the house.
Chief Whinham says he believes the officer's actions were justified and says if put in the same situation, he would have done the same thing.
"If you take whatever the club might be, the mechanism -- golf club, pipe, ax handle -- it doesn't matter to me," he says. "The fact is, what can be the result, and in this case the result could have caused a lot of serious injury and potentially death to that officer or others that were trying to do what we have them do in our communities."
The officer involved has been placed on temporary leave while multiple agencies conduct investigations into the shooting. Each will carefully examine the incident and determine if deadly force was necessary.
The name of the man shot by police has not been released.
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Story compiled with information from Shara Park and Randall Jeppesen.
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