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Courtney Orton reportingPolice have identified the man who was shot and killed yesterday when he barricaded himself in his apartment and then attacked an officer with a 2½ foot sword.
The man who lived inside the fourth-floor apartment was 39-year-old Ross Sullivan.
His dad, who lives in Oregon, told the Salt Lake Tribune that he loved the outdoors and most recently worked as a chef in Alta but had plans to move to Alaska.
Those who knew him here say he was a nice guy who kept to himself. "It took a minute to realize what had happened, and that it was the police that had done that. It kind of sinks in slowly; it's not something you'd expect," said Stephen Kime, the complex manager.
He's still trying to get over what happened yesterday at the condo complex he's managed for the last year. He describes 39-year-old Ross Sullivan as a decent guy who was pretty quiet.
He'd even seen the swords Sullivan kept inside his apartment. Kime said, "They were decorative swords that he keeps, like those samurai swords you buy at the hobby shop. I'd seen them before. I'd been in his apartment [and it] wasn't something he'd ever taken out and waived around."
Kime says he was especially surprised when he got calls from other tenants yesterday saying Sullivan was banging a railing with a sword and throwing items including a TV, a Christmas tree, and a toy Santa Claus from the balcony.
Kime was there as police tried to get Sullivan out of his apartment for more than an hour.
"We were up there by his door for quite some time," said Kime. "They talked to him quite a bit on the phone, tried to get him to come out."
When Sullivan finally came out of the apartment, officers unsuccessfully used a Taser on him.
Police say Sullivan then went back into the apartment as officers followed, and he grabbed a sword. Gary Keller, spokesman for the South Salt Lake Police Department, said, "Once he was inside and the officer entered, he did swing the sword, hitting one of the officers in the arm. [It was a] stroke of luck that the cloth or the fabric of the coat that was cut actually caught the sword blade and he wasn't injured."
That's when a second officer fired multiple times, killing Sullivan.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office is conducting a Use of Deadly Force Investigation, while South Salt Lake Police conduct an Administrative Investigation.
Both officers involved are on routine paid administrative leave.
