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SALT LAKE CITY — Police say a man who caused an accidental shooting that injured someone at a party Monday night was then shot and killed by the injured person's brother in Salt Lake City's Glendale neighorhood.
Jima Gat, 31, was arrested Friday for investigation of murder and obstruction of justice, in the shooting death of 41-year-old Andrew Mozart Maka, according to Salt Lake City police.
The investigation began when police responded to a report of a shooting at an apartment near 1600 West and Snow Queen Place shortly before midnight on Monday.
A woman who lives at the location said she had gotten a phone call from her brother saying there was a dead man in the apartment, police wrote in a jail report. Officers arrived to find that Maka was severely wounded; he was pronounced dead at the scene after officers and paramedics attempted to provide aid.
Police were able to speak with a witness, who said Maka and Gat were drinking at the apartment with two other people after they met at a convenience store earlier in the night.
Maka eventually pulled out a handgun to show it off to the group. The witness told police that Maka believed the gun was unloaded when he put it down on a table inside the apartment, and it accidentally discharged. A round struck Gat's brother in the hand, the report states.
"Gat became angry, grabbed the handgun from (Maka) and fired several times," the document states. "The witness described (Maka) falling to the ground and seeing blood coming from his wounds."
An autopsy determined that Maka was struck multiple times with wounds to his hand, chest and neck.
The witness said that Gat ran out of the apartment with the gun after the shooting, where he threw it into the nearby Jordan River Surplus Canal, according to the jail report. The group then fled the scene and went to a relative's home in Rose Park, where Gat reportedly expressed regret for the incident.
Police carried out a search warrant of the Rose Park home, where they found blood droplets they believed were from Gat's brother, per the jail report. Police also located a second person who corroborated the chain of events.
Gat was eventually located near 380 S. 300 West Friday afternoon and arrested by members of the Salt Lake City Police Department's Violent Criminal Apprehension Team without incident.
Police wrote in the jail report that Gat denied knowing others police had spoken with and requested a lawyer. It wasn't immediately clear if he has obtained legal representation.
The gun has not yet been recovered despite searches of the surplus canal. Anyone who may have any information, photos or video tied to the case is asked to call police at 801-799-3000.
The shooting was Salt Lake City's seventh homicide this year.
