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SALT LAKE CITY — A Taylorsville man was arrested Sunday in the shooting death of a Florida man outside the Salt Palace Convention Center.
Police say the shooting may have been prompted by the victim defrauding people in betting matches at a sneaker convention.
The investigation began about 3:19 p.m. Saturday, when police received reports of a shooting near 150 S. West Temple. When officers arrived they located 41-year-old Delford Knight on the ground with critical injuries, receiving aid from bystanders.
Knight was taken to the hospital where he later died of his injuries.
Knight and his friends had traveled to Salt Lake City from Florida for a sneaker convention at the Salt Palace Convention Center. Knight and his friends had attended "similar conferences in different states where they engaged in betting matches to defraud people out of money," Salt Lake police said in a statement.
One the suspects may have lost money to Knight and became angry, according to police. Knight was followed out onto West Temple where he was later confronted by several others. A fight broke out between Knight and others, including Deng Mawut Buk, who were trying to get back the lost money, police said.
"At some point, a person with Buk took out a gun and shot Knight," the police statement says.
The shooter and another individual then took items from Knight's pockets, including a cellphone and cash, and then fled, according to police.
Buk, 22, was arrested after Salt Lake SWAT teams and homicide detectives executed a search warrant. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Sunday for investigation of murder and aggravated robbery. Police were still searching for additional people, including the shooter, according to the statement.
In 2021, Buk was charged with two counts of robbery after police say he and three other men surrounded a parked car in the Avenues neighborhood, pounded on the windows and doors and told the occupants — a woman and man, both 18 — to get out of the car. One of the men broke a window with an unidentified object and the men stole the woman's cellphone and purse, according to charging documents. Court records indicate that the charges were later dismissed because of evidence issues.
In 2020, he was convicted of assault against a police officer and failing to stop at the command of law enforcement in two separate incidents from 2019 and was sentenced to two years of probation. In the assault case, police were responding to a report that Buk had struck a minor and said Buk tried to strike an officer when he was ordered to stop. When he was told to stop or he would be Tased, Buk "balled up his fist" and "continued fighting" and struggling with officers, according to charging documents.
During the struggle, Buk's brother came outside and accused police of shooting his brother, then struck two officers in the face with a closed fist, the charges state.
