- Officer Clifton Payton was legally justified in Chandler Grillone's shooting.
- Grillone, wielding a ninja star, threatened Payton and a ride-along passenger.
- Salt Lake County DA Sim Gill announced Friday no charges will be filed for the Jan. 2025 confrontation.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake City police officer who fatally shot a man during a bizarre confrontation that started during a traffic stop, with which the victim wasn't even involved, will not be charged.
Officer Clifton Payton was determined to be legally justified in using deadly force when he shot 32-year-old Chandler Dean Grillone, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced Friday.
On Jan. 9, 2025, about 1:30 a.m., Payton made a routine traffic stop and pulled over a pickup truck near 375 South and 765 West. In body camera video, Payton is sitting in his patrol car about 10 minutes later, verifying the driver's vehicle registration and license, when he is startled by Grillone, who was not involved in the traffic stop, but approached the officer's vehicle and knocked on the driver's-side window.
"What are you doing? Get back," the officer orders Grillone as he exits his vehicle. "Get up in front of the car right now."
In police body camera video, there appears to be physical contact as the officer pushes Grillone back. Gill's report states that when Payton exited his patrol car, "an altercation ensued, during which Mr. Grillone hit officer Payton in the arm, asked him if he wanted to die, hit him in the face and continued to not comply with commands."
"He used his right arm and hit me," said Payton, who agreed to be interviewed for Gill's investigation.
After he was hit in the face, Payton said he noticed that Grillone had a "blade" in his hand. That object was later determined to be a "five-pointed ninja star," Gill's report states.
"His arm was covered in blood, which I thought at that point was my blood; I thought that he had stabbed me," Payton said.
The report states that Grillone, while holding the ninja star, "swung upwards towards officer Payton's upper arm and hit him," and then asked the officer, "Do you want to die tonight?"
Grillone continues to make odd comments as the nearly two-minute confrontation continues, such as, "This is a citizen's audit" and "What are you doing? This is not illegal," while pointing to the pickup that was pulled over, prompting the officer to respond, "What are you … talking about?"
"Buddy, you better get away from me right now," the officer says.
"Why?" Grillone replies. "What did I do? ... What's your name?" Grillone continues taking a fighting stance against the officer, still clutching the ninja star. The officer orders him several times to drop what he's holding and get on the ground.
"Why? What'd I do?" Grillone responds in the video. "You don't have the authority to tell me to get on the ground."
Grillone then walks over to the pickup that was pulled over and jumps into the back of the bed. The officer tells emergency dispatchers on his police radio that Grillone appears to have a knife while continuously ordering him at gunpoint to get on the ground.
"It's not a knife, you liar. You don't know what it is. Identify it," he tells the officer.
Grillone next jumps out of the pickup truck and starts walking toward the passenger side of the officer's patrol car, where a woman, who was doing a ride-along with the officer that night, was still sitting. Grillone appears to point at her as he walks toward the car despite multiple orders to stop.
"He pointed at my ride-along, and he started to make a movement towards her. And he made his way towards that side of the car where she was," Payton recounted. "I was thinking he was going to kill her. That's when I shot him."
Payton fired at least five rounds, the report states. Grillone falls to the ground and, while sitting up, asks the officer, "How many you got left?"
Grillone was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and died from his injuries the next day. The officer was treated for minor injuries.
"Based upon the evidence before us in this case, we believe that officer Patyon was reasonable in believing that he needed to use deadly force against Mr. Grillone to prevent death or serious bodily injury to (his ride-along passenger)," Gill's report concluded. "Mr. Grillone was advancing towards her with the ninja star after having already used it on officer Payton and threatened to kill him."
Several months prior to his fatal confrontation with police, Grillone was arrested for assaulting people at random during Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. He pleaded guilty and was going through mental health court at the time of his death.
