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SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake police on Saturday identified the man who died in a shooting early Tuesday and said another man has been arrested in relation to it.
Kasim Sheikh-Mumin, 41, is in custody on suspicion of homicide, felony discharge of a firearm, and possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person after the shooting death of Salesi Katoa. Two others were injured in the shooting; their names were not released.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, police responded to reports of a shooting just minutes after midnight Tuesday at 25 E. Kensington Ave., the Kings Lounge. They found Sheikh-Mumin, who said he'd been in an altercation with a Polynesian male. He had visible injuries to his head, police wrote.
Police found one person with gunshot wounds to his torso and left forearm at a nearby motel; a short time later, a woman checked in at St. Mark's Hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to her arm.
But Katoa was found in the driver's seat of a vehicle directly in front of the Kings Lounge. The vehicle's front passenger window was shattered; an autopsy revealed that he had been shot seven times. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police found blood and spent cartridges on the sidewalk in front of Kings Lounge.
When Sheikh-Mumin was interviewed by detectives, he said he'd been staying at the Kensington Avenue location with a man and a woman. He told police he heard a knock and observed three men at the door, and let them in because he knew one of them.
When one of the men pulled out a meth pipe, Sheikh-Mumin said, they got in an argument and then a physical fight. He told police he was punched in the head and fell to the ground, and that everyone else ran out of the room. That's when the man who'd been staying with him shot Katoa, Sheikh-Mumin claimed.
But when interviewed, that man told a different tale, He was taken into custody Wednesday after police located his vehicle in Taylorsville.
He told police that he'd been held at knifepoint during the fight; he fired rounds with his own gun, he said, but not at the Polynesian men. He then dropped his gun, he said, when he realized the woman had been hit. He went to assist her.
That's when Sheikh-Mumin grabbed his weapon off the ground and pursued the men into the parking lot, he said. He heard about eight shots outside, at which point Sheikh-Mumin came back inside and said he'd killed someone.
The woman who was shot in the arm told police the same thing, saying Sheikh-Mumin fired rounds outside and then told them he'd killed someone while the other man assisted her with her injury. The woman told police she wasn't sure who shot her.
"Detectives have reason to believe that (Sheikh-Mumin) was no longer in grave danger" when he shot Katoa, they said. They noted in the probable cause statement that Sheikh-Mumin has been involved in 24 police "incidents" in Utah, eight of which resulted in a conviction. One of those convictions was for a felony, they wrote.
Police did not release Katoa's age Saturday. On Twitter, Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown said Sheikh-Mumin's arrest was an "effort of multiple units over a holiday" and "a prime example of the dedication and hard work of the men and women of @slcpd."
