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SALT LAKE CITY — Investigators attempting to piece together details surrounding an officer-involved shooting in Sanpete County last month documented bullet fragments, ammunition in the living room and bathroom and more than three dozen shell casings.
On March 18, a woman was checking on Paul Harward, 53, at his home in Spring City, Sanpete County. She was concerned "about his mental state," according to charging documents.
While she was on his front porch at the front door, a shot was fired through the window at her, the charges state. She was not hit. Emergency dispatchers told the woman to get back in her car and leave immediately.
As she was driving away, "she heard several shots and the back of her car window shattered," according to the charges.
Law enforcement officers from throughout the county responded and a SWAT team from Utah County surrounded the house. Officers were able to make telephone contact with Harward inside the house and he told them to "all come in there so he can kill us all," the charges state.
For more than two hours, the SWAT team attempted to talk Harward into surrendering peacefully. When he finally stepped out of his house, he raised a handgun toward officers and began firing, the charges state. Several officers returned fire. He was shot and was eventually flown by medical helicopter to Intermountain Medical Center in Murray where his right hand was amputated bellow his wrist due to the extensive gunshot injuries, according to the charges.
Harward is charged in 6th District Court with attempted aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; two counts of discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony; and threat of violence, a class C misdemeanor. His next court date is scheduled for April 24.
Evidence and measurements were collected at the scene for investigators to create a 3D scan of the area, according to a search warrant affidavit.
Shell casings were found in Harward's kitchen and an attached shed. Live cartridges were found in a bedroom, gun magazines were found in a bathroom, a handgun was recovered on the front porch where Harward was shot by police as well as a "piece of finger," the warrant states.
The scan also included where each of the SWAT officers fired from, including two snipers set up across the street and a third on a nearby roof.
