Pursuit Leads to Unrelated Family Hostage Situation and HRT

In September of 2021, a suspect involved in a carjacking and attempted homicide in Clearfield, Utah, led law enforcement on a vehicle pursuit that ended in a crash on the freeway in Farmington. The suspect fled on foot across I-15 into a residential neighborhood, prompting patrol officers to establish a perimeter and begin a search with a K-9 unit. During the search, a single gunshot was heard. South Davis Metropolitan SWAT and North Davis Metropolitan SWAT were both activated to conduct a house-to-house search. Operators discovered a bullet hole in a resident's window, and shortly after, a male exited a nearby home in a vehicle. He was stopped and informed operators that his family was being held hostage and that the suspect had sent him to check for police. As operators moved toward the residence, a juvenile female escaped through a window.

Debriefing the father and daughter, it became clear that three more hostages remained inside the home with an armed suspect. Negotiations continued for several hours. At times, both the suspect and hostages stated that they were free to leave. The suspect said he would bring the hostage to the front door to show that they were unharmed. A sniper observed the suspect bringing the hostages to the door and initiated a hostage rescue shot, striking the suspect in the head. The suspect had two hostages in front of him and one to his side, and a handgun was recovered next to his body.

My guest today is Lieutenant Andrew Smith. Andrew began his law enforcement career with the Utah Highway Patrol in 2008. In 2011 he left the highway and began working for the West Bountiful Police Department. He joined the South Davis Metropolitan SWAT team in 2012, and eventually moved to the Bountiful City Police Department in 2013, where he worked his way through various assignments and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and team commander of the South Davis Metropolitan SWAT team. Andrew has held numerous leadership positions in the department, including FTO, lead scout, entry team member, and assistant team leader, and is currently the South Davis Metropolitan SWAT team commander. He's been honored with numerous unit citations as a member of the police department and SWAT team, including his involvement in two hostage rescue operations and two Bountiful City Police Department chief stars, one of which for his response to an active shooter at a local junior high.

My name is Jon Becker. For the past four decades, I've dedicated my life to protecting tactical operators. During this time, I've worked with many of the world's top law enforcement and military units. As a result, I've had the privilege of working with the amazing leaders who take teams into the world's most dangerous situations.

The goal of this podcast is to share their stories in hopes of making us all better leaders, better thinkers, and better people.

Welcome to The Debrief!

Jon Becker: Andrew, thanks for being here with me.

Andrew Smith: It's an honor to be here.

Jon Becker: So, let's start with the city. Like, tell me about the department. Tell me about the team.

Andrew Smith: We are a small department. We're a 38-man department just north of Salt Lake City in Bountiful, Utah. We're a bedroom community for everybody that works in the Salt Lake Valley area. Our crime rate is not high. We're a population of about 47,000 residents. We have maybe a homicide every couple years. Just a really low-key, good community to raise your family in. Our SWAT team is a multi-jurisdictional SWAT team. We cover the south end of Davis County. There's a second team that covers the north end of Davis County. So the population we cover is roughly about 80 to 85,000 for tactical services.

Jon Becker: Okay. And this is one of the things that when we first talked struck me as interesting. So there is a South Davis and a North Davis.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: And you guys split Davis County. How many agencies are in the South Davis team?

Andrew Smith: So the South Davis team, we cover seven agencies and then the North End covers six agencies.

Jon Becker: Okay. And so we can probably just refer to them as north and south because both are going to be involved here.

Andrew Smith: Yep. Both are going to be here.

Jon Becker: So we'll go south and north.Talk to me about the capabilities of the team. How big is the team? How many operators? What's your uptempo look like?

Andrew Smith: Yeah, our team size we're about 26. When we're fully staffed, each agency doesn't have a specific number that they contribute to the team. Just whatever their staffing allows for. We have one team commander, a team leader, two assistant team leaders, two marksmen, and then everybody else is a multi-capability operator. Whether we're assigning them to be a breacher, a tech guy, etc. So that's the makeup of our team. We don't have explosive breaching capabilities nor does the North Davis team, which comes into play with this operation.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: So that's the dynamics. Our uptempo, we're not a super busy team. Most of our calls are to assist Salt Lake City, our sister team. And it's a handful of guys that will go down there to assist them. So, we average between assists and our callouts or warrant services about 20 to 25 operations a year.

Jon Becker: Okay. So part-time collateral duty team.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And multi-jurisdictional regional team.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: Okay. So, how does this case start for you guys?

Andrew Smith: So, this case starts actually on September 8th of 2021. The suspect in this case goes to a local hospital in the north end of the county and is in a drug field crisis. He pulls a gun out, puts it to his head, and ends up stealing his girlfriend's car. He flees from the area there after police are called, gets into pursuit with West Valley PD. West Valley PD terminates their pursuit and then an arrest warrant is issued for him the following day.

Jon Becker: Okay. So, they know who he is. They just decided, "We're not going to chase him anymore because he's going to hit a civilian or something."

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: Let him go, get an arrest warrant, you know, come back and try and get him.

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: Okay. Got it.

Andrew Smith: So, on the 9th of September, the suspect goes to try to break into his brother's house in Clearfield, Utah, which is where all this stuff comes from. He ends up leaving the house just prior to Clearfield PD getting there and they miss him. But he comes back later that same night to try to do the same thing. At this point, Clearfield PD actually locates him and in the heart of Clearfield City is an industrial complex. He ends up turning into this industrial complex. Ends up losing the officer. The officer locates his unoccupied car at this time and begins a K9 search in the area. While we're there doing a K9 search, the suspect carjacks someone at the security gate of what's called the Freeport Center in Clearfield. The information that was put out over the radio was that he had shot the female driver of the car. So we're looking at him now for attempted homicide. The Utah Highway Patrol ends up picking him up. They get into a pursuit. Enters I-15 southbound and we have every agency involved at this point. They know what's coming in. They get a good successful spike on the car and the car comes to arrest in the Farmington area which is the county seat for Davis County pretty much right smack dab in the middle of the county and he runs across I-15 northbound into a neighborhood and the trooper loses sight of him going into that neighborhood. That's how that initial call begins and now you have the whole county coming.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I mean, this guy's on a three-day crime spree just wrecking his way through Davis County. And so, he runs across I-15.

Andrew Smith: Yep. And somehow he plays “Frogger” across I-15 and doesn't get hit and it was a busier time of night for well, surprisingly busy for 2:00 in the morning.

Jon Becker: Did the troopers chase him across I-15 or they get back in their--

Andrew Smith: Thank goodness they didn't. They just stayed there. They stayed on scene. Called out where he was going. But…

Jon Becker: Good luck, buddy.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Yep.

Jon Becker: Okay. So, now he gets into a residential neighborhood adjacent to the freeway.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: What happens next?

Andrew Smith: At that point, the officers responding to the area, start to set up a containment. My partner, Mike Sheldon, who's at the time was my SWAT team leader. Okay. And at the time of this operation, I was the assistant team leader for the South Davis Metro SWAT team. He was working a graveyard shift for Bountiful City, which is about 10 minutes south of this incident. And here's the call coming in. He starts slowly working his way up there and when he gets there realizes that nobody has set up command. So we have 40 officers that have responded to this area and nobody is running command.

Jon Becker: I wish I could tell you that's special, but it's not unique.

Andrew Smith: Definitely not unique.

Jon Becker: Would have a command post. That's the one thing the firefighters like, yeah, they're good at that.

Andrew Smith: They're very good at that.

Jon Becker: Police departments because nobody's set up command. Nobody wants it.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So, just prior to his arrival though, a Centerville officer. So, where this incident happened borders Centerville City and Farmington City. Literally right on the border.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: A Centerville city officer setting up just a road containment position, hitting a spotlight in both directions to try to kind of lock down that road. And he hears a single gunshot in the area. Unable to exactly determine where it was where it came from, but heard the single gunshot. So, initially what we're thinking now and Mike is thinking is we're just looking for the dude who killed himself. We're looking for a dead body in a yard.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And that's it. So, he starts to formulate plans. He gets with our K9. We had five K9 officers respond to the pursuit termination point and where he was last seen. He tells our canine guys, "Go put together a plan and come back to me with it." And they come back to him and say, "This is not a canine problem. This is a tactical problem. So, we're not going to deploy our dogs out."

Jon Becker: Because we know where the guy is because we don't know where the guy is. And I feel like that's what we use dogs for. What makes it a tactical problem versus a canine problem in this instance?

Andrew Smith: I don't believe that it was directly a tactical problem at this point.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: I think that it was-- I love our cannon handlers, but it's a dangerous situation.

Jon Becker: There was danger.

Andrew Smith: They were more concerned about the safety of their canines.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's fair.

Andrew Smith: Versus their biggest concern was if the canine is likely going to go past the suspect and then track back to him. And if the suspect was at an ambush point, now they're coming. He's going to kill. So, Mike said, "Okay, that's fine. You guys are no longer needed then. Go work somewhere else." And he called me immediately and he said, "I need you. I need you now. This is where I'm at." And I didn't ask any questions. Threw my stuff on and responded down to him. And we started to formulate a plan of how we were going to shrink this problem. The area where the suspect was last seen is a newer development. There were about 70 homes under construction.

Jon Becker: Jesus.

Andrew Smith: With a wide open field just south of it. It's such a big area that we're having to do house to house searches. So we made the decision we're going to call out the South Davis Metro SWAT team as well as the North Davis SWAT team to come do house searches.

Jon Becker: So you call North Davis for mutual aid?

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: And activate your own team.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: Okay. Are you sure at this point you even have an actual containment?

Andrew Smith: We felt like we had a pretty good containment because when the pursuit was coming in, officers started to respond to that area.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: Already. And then the centerville officer heard the gunshot, he was in the area within about a minute when he heard the gunshot go off.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: So, we think we have a pretty good idea of where he's at. Now, obviously, when you start setting up that containment and the guy's high. He can move pretty quickly. Yeah. And so, our containment area was actually pretty broad to begin with because we knew how fast he was moving.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Okay. So, you've got containment.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: You've got both teams active in route.

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: K9 search is not an option.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: What happens next?

Andrew Smith: At this point, we start thinking what are our options knowing if our canines are saying this is a tactical problem. It doesn't make sense for us to then put just regular patrol officers to start clearing. We got lucky that night. Star 9, which is the DPS helicopter, had just landed and was refueling. Normally, it's about an hour and a half spin up for them to get back to us.

They were 20 minutes out. So, we started with the Star9 searching using their flur camera to search the area because if we can pinpoint, see a body, something out of out of the norm, it's going to shrink that problem for us a lot quicker.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Andrew Smith: As soon as our guys start getting there, I am tasked by Mike to do a briefing on them. I let them know the situation, who we're looking for, and what area of the contained area that we're going to start searching with the South Davis team. I then brief the North Davis team leaders about the same thing. You're assigned to this specific area.

Jon Becker: Report back when it's done. So it's a new development.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: What percentage of the houses are completed and occupied?

Andrew Smith: The houses that were completed and occupied are probably around 30%. Everything else is in various stages of construction. No locked doors, no anything on which means he could have gotten into every single one of those.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Andrew Smith: So, a big problem for us that we're having to deal with. I think we're talking about 100ish to 120 homes total in that area and either fully occupied or just had the foundation poured.

Jon Becker: Wow.

Andrew Smith: So, a lot for our guys to deal with, but we tell them to start to deal with that as they start doing that. Star 9's overhead, circling the area. He's monitoring our team's movement. Is also trying to track down. Again, we're we're we believe we are just searching for a dead body at this point. About an hour into the search, Star 9 says that “We've searched the area. We don't see anything. We're going to start expanding our area”. So, now we started thinking, “Oh man, maybe our perimeter was not as tight as we thought”.

Jon Becker: Yeah, maybe you broke your containment.

Andrew Smith: The K9 guys who were not working it in the area had found a hat in the neighborhood to the north of where we were at and the suspect was last seen wearing a hat. So now they're starting to think even more, okay, this guy definitely broke our containment. At that point, the North Davis SWAT team, they're on the last cul-de-sac that they are clearing, and they find a single bullet hole in a window of a residence. So, now our focus is that's where the gunshot was at. So, let's check that house, make sure we're not seeing a dead body around there. As they are doing that, they see a car backing out of the driveway. They stop the car in the cul-de-sac, and they meet Chris Samuelson. And he tells them, "The guy you're looking for is in my house holding my family hostage."

Jon Becker: Jesus.

Andrew Smith: And in command, we were going from, "We're 30 minutes away from wrapping this thing up. We know who the guy is.” We'll go find him another day to we hear “Break, break”, (Break, break, break, break. Hey, we just got someone leaving 1645 saying that they've been held hostage in their house for the last couple of hours.) And it's on.

Jon Becker: Wow. So, how does the dad get away? I mean, now retrospectively, how does the dad get away to be driving through the neighborhood?

Andrew Smith: So, it's a unique situation. My interaction with Chris was not great to begin with. He got brought back to command and I debriefed him on everything. After the whole incident's done, we talked to Chris, and figured out exactly what happened. The suspect Chris woke up to hearing voices that he was not familiar with as his alarm goes off to start getting ready for work. He goes out, the suspect points a gun at him, Chris believes that the suspect was intimidated by him. So the whole time that Chris is moving around the house with the suspect, the suspect keeps putting one of his family members in front.

Jon Becker: Oh yeah. Because he's afraid he's going to hit him or take him.

Andrew Smith: And Chris is a gun guy. He has guns spread out all around his house. Now, none of them are chambered, but he has guns in various locations throughout his house. So Chris is trying to strategically plan “How do I access this weapon?” Enough time to do that.

Jon Becker: How do I lead this guy somewhere while I can quickly grab a gun and kill him?

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Yeah. So, one of those again talking to Chris is in their master bedroom. He actually has a gun underneath his mattress that's not loaded, but the suspect brings in his daughter Piper and puts Piper between Chris and him. And Piper's catching what Chris is starting to do. He's trying to plan “How quickly can I get this gun out, rack it around to the chamber, and shoot this guy before he shoots my daughter?”

Jon Becker: Right. Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Ultimately, Chris makes the difficult decision that a lot of people, including myself, criticized him on there's no way I'm leaving my family. No way I'm allowing this to happen.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: He ends up leaving. And the story that he told us was I told the suspect, I got to go do a a drug test. The suspect fit onto that and let him go.

Jon Becker: I mean that is a very difficult decision to make. retroactively it's the right decision but it's a very difficult decision to make. I would not. I think that is Solomon's choice because he also knows that nobody's coming to help. Yeah. Like because nobody knows nobody knows the hostage right now.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Becker: Interesting.

Andrew Smith: And so yeah so Chris has met in the culdesac. He's brought back to the tactical command where I'm at and I was assigned to debrief Chris. Going through hostage rescue 101. I asked him to draw out his house for me where they were at, confirm the suspects in there, confirm it. The suspect has a handgun. The last known location before Chris left, and then I made the decision to have Chris leave the scene to go with negotiators away from the scene. Chris still is a little pissed at me today for that decision, but I made the decision based on I'm a father as well, and if I lose sight of an officer who is not watching me, I'm going to go find my way back to that house. I'm going to sneak in, and I'm going to kill this suspect who has my family home.

Jon Becker: Yeah, him being there is not going to help a peaceful or non- peaceful resolution of the situation. It's only going to add drama and complexity and everything else. So, I think it's the right decision, but I'm sure it was very difficult for him to leave.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. He was not happy and I understand that. So, we get that information from Chris and within probably 10 minutes after that, his 15-year-old daughter, Presley Samuelson, wakes up. She's getting ready for school. She looks at her phone and her phone's getting blown up by friends saying, "Hey, there's a whole bunch of police in the area. Is everything okay?" Okay. And she has no idea anything's going on. And she wakes up, goes upstairs. I have a 14-year-old daughter. There's no way my 14-year-old daughter acts this way. Presley doesn't make a single sound. She walks upstairs, sees a guy with a gun, doesn't recognize him, goes immediately back downstairs, out her bedroom window, and is picked up by operators on containment.

Jon Becker: Clever girl.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, she's an amazing girl. So she's brought back to command. We confirm the exact same thing that Chris said. Inside the house is her mom, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend and the suspect who has a black handgun.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: And they were all in the main living room, which is exactly where Chris told us they had just been when he left.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: So, at this point, we have a little bit of information with where the suspect's at. We start putting together our deliberate action plan. One of the things we made a lot of mistakes during this operation. One of the things that we did right was as soon as we had the two teams, the North Davis and the South Davis teams arrive, we told them “Whichever team finds the problem first, whether it's a barricade, a hostage rescue, that person is going to become the immediate action team, the other team's going to turn back to command and start deliberate rehearsals.”

Jon Becker: Oh, that's smart.

Andrew Smith: So we had already had that pre-established. So when that “Break, break, break” went out, the North Davis team who found the problem immediately transitioned to an immediate action team. The South Davis team returned back and started deliberate action rehearsals. And that's where after I have Chris diagram out what he could remember, obviously he's in a state of high emotion. And so it was a chicken scratch drawing. I went to one of our veteran operators on the team and said, "You're the team leader for the deliberate action team. Here's your diagram. Go start putting together a plan. Let me know when you're ready." And they went and rehearsed. At this point too, because of what we were dealing with, I had 16 operators arrive for the call out. North Davis had 21. And because of the size of the structure, we decided to call the Salt Lake City SWAT team as well. And they did a full team activation and they ended up having 30 operators respond to the scene. With their negotiator team plus our negotiator team, we ended up with 12 negotiators to start tackling this problem. But that causes some problems as well because we have now three tactical commanders, multiple team leaders, that are all coming together to solve a hostage rescue and none of us trained together.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Even North and South Davis don't really train together?

Andrew Smith: Not really. difference in philosophies and stuff kind of has kept us from doing so. We tried for a little bit. All we did combined was firearms training. We never did anything to integrate tactics or to make us be able to flow a little bit better that way.

Jon Becker: Okay. So, you got three tactical commanders, you got a dozen negotiators, you got now probably 70 operators.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: What is the deliberate action plan?

Andrew Smith: Well, the deliberate action plan went into multiple phases. The initial was if just that crisis entry they got to go type deal. Daniel Hawz who was assigned to be the team leader for that.

They planned for every contingency they could. They ran through the suspect's last known location was on the other side of the couch right in the middle of the living room and they would move to where the suspect okay the suspect's not in that position. He's over here now. The suspect has hostages standing in front of them. That move to in a hostage rescue where we are doing a deliberate assault, there's a high degree of likelihood that one of our operators or a hostage is going to get killed.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Andrew Smith: So, they transition to an operator down, multiple operators down and then happen to step over them and bypass those. So, you thought you were going left, but the person in front of you went down and now you got to go right.

Jon Becker: Nice.

Andrew Smith: So they started planning all those contingencies to everything they could think about. But with that comes overload and they were very overloaded. So they would have to take breaks and try to jump back back into it.

Jon Becker: Okay. How long does this go on? As you guys are doing the initial planning how long is that deliberate planning before something changes?

Andrew Smith: The deliberate planning went on probably about three and a half hours.

Jon Becker: Oh, okay. And in the meantime, does negotiation have contact with the suspect?

Andrew Smith: They have contact with the suspect. They also have contact with the hostages still inside with Holly Joe Samuelson, Piper Samuelson, and Ethan Dowing.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: Through various forms of communication. Most of it was through text messages. They were not answering the phone. As negotiators are talking to them, we get some conflicting information where our negotiators are telling us “We think that these guys are willing participants”. We're not even sure we're dealing with a hostage situation.

Jon Becker: Oh, interesting. What made them think that?

Andrew Smith: Some of the things that they were saying was like I don't want to say the suspect's name. I don't want to give them that credit.

Jon Becker: Nope.

Andrew Smith: They were saying, "We just want to help him through some things. We're helping him through this. We're free to go. We just want to make sure he gets the help that he needs. He's a good guy. He's just struggling right now.” And multiple times it was we're free to leave.

Jon Becker: There's three possibilities here. One, they're legitimately seeing the text messages. Two, he's telling them what to say. Or three, he's stolen their phones.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: Do you know which of the…

Andrew Smith: It was a combination. They definitely fell into the Stockholm syndrome of where they were building a relationship with this individual who took him hostage. And I can't fault them for that because if you don't, you're dead.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: So, they're doing everything they can do in survival mode to get through that process. Got it. And yeah, he did take their phone. It caused us a tactical dilemma because as negotiators are coming to us, the tactical command, saying, "We don't think they're hostages." Well, we've just given open authority on this and now you're telling us they're willing participants. Do we even have a legal obligation to be here right anymore?

Jon Becker: Yeah. Is this legitimately a tactical problem? And if they're not, they're not hostages, then I mean, you still have to get the guy, right?

Andrew Smith: Still get the guy, but yeah, it changes how we plan everything, right? We're dealing with a barricade, a potentially barricaded individual, right? Versus…

Jon Becker: With some co-conspirators.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Versus a hostage rescue which is going to completely change how we handle and tackle the problem. So yeah, it puts us into a closed authority situation of you are no longer even if you see him separate, we have more information in tactical command than you do, you're not going to take that shot.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Andrew Smith: And people were not prepared for that. Now, that didn't last long because negotiators eventually got on the phone with Ethan, the suspect had stepped away. They got on the phone with Ethan and he said, "Yeah, we're not free to leave." So, we immediately went back into an open authority situation. Got it. Okay.

Jon Becker: So, then what happens? Well, negotiators through the conversation with them are able to convince him to show proof of life. And there was an issue with negotiators telling tactical command that this was taking place. So our tactical plan was not set for this. Now a lot of it you think you know where people are at. You think you have a good idea of where people were set up and then a suspect comes to the front door and shows proof of life. And the only reason why you knew that the suspect went to the front door was because a dog left the house.

Jon Becker: Oh wow.

Andrew Smith: So we realized at this point we made a couple mistakes.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So the long guns are in the wrong position.

Andrew Smith: Long guns are in the wrong position. We set up all of our long guns on the east side of the residence.

Jon Becker: What side would that be?

Andrew Smith: Be the three-side of the residence.

Jon Becker: Three sides.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So for us, one side's the front door. So the three-side of the residence. And a lot of that was information that we were getting. We had a neighbor call us. We're actually one of the marksman teams set up in their house saying, "Hey, I can see the suspect. He keeps coming to the back door, keeps looking out the back windows." It's like, okay, if that's what he's doing, we're going to set up all of our marksmen on that side.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: All information driven. And we quickly realized we made a mistake. The other thing that we thought was that the emergency action team or media action team was actually on the target property. They were actually a residence to the north. So they couldn't see the front door because it had a breezeway. So front doors tucked back. So we thought they could see it. We thought they had eyes on. In reality, they didn't. And that definitely impacted it as well. Again, the only reason why we knew he came to the front door was the dog ran out. And our guys like, “Whoa, where'd that come from?”

Jon Becker: Got it.

Andrew Smith: So, we quickly rectified that. Mike Sheldon gets that information that we missed that target of opportunity. At the same time, Salt Lake City sniper team leaders come to us and he says, "Can I?" And Mike says, "Yes, do it now." So they were already on the same page of we need to reposition our marksman around to give us that better coverage. So the marksman that was in the house to the north on the 2, 3 corner, they grabbed the rifles and immediately moved to their position where the marksman ended up taking the shot.

Jon Becker: North Davis has the house, South Davis is planning immediate action or you know deliberate action. And you have snipers from…

Andrew Smith: All three teams.

Jon Becker: All three teams at different points around the house.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Andrew Smith: So we have the South Davis marksman who was immediately on the three-side of the residence in a field hiding behind a dirt berm with some construction stuff. The North Davis marksmen were at a house on the four side and then the Salt Lake marksman when they arrived went to the two, three corner.

Jon Becker: Got it. So now they're going to reposition from the two-three corner to the one side.

Andrew Smith: South side. It was easier for them to move than any other team. our guy once the sun started coming up over the mountain, he was no longer able to move without being seen.

Jon Becker: Got it.

Andrew Smith: So, the other issue that we had with our marksman specifically that we had to make sure they were dialed in was the suspect and Ethan Downey looks very similar in appearance.

Jon Becker: Oh boy. So, you got a hostage and a suspect that look similar.

Andrew Smith: Similar. Same height, same facial structure. Both were wearing hats when they were last seen. So, it was okay, so, we immediately put that over the radio. We sent pictures to the marksman team and our marksman did a fantastic job. They studied when they were off gun. They were calling out specific facial features, making sure they knew exactly who they were looking for.

Jon Becker: Nice.

Andrew Smith: So, that led into us starting to get to the point where we needed to put our deliberate team in place. We went to Salt Lake City, and had the breachers formulate a plan. The breachers went up to evaluate the house, figure out where the best entry points were going to be or positions for them to do explosive breaches that would create multiple entry points as well as a distraction element. They were supposed to go up and then come back. Well, they never came back. They stayed up on the stage. So, the plan of what they were going to do never got into place. As they were formulating their plans, the suspect showed proof of life again which we knew he was likely going to do. The first time he went out there, nothing happened. The second time we were ready for this. Our marksman saw the door open, and within seconds of the door opening took the shot.

(Gunshots)

Shot out.

Go-go-go.

Go-go-go.

Header-header.

(Police shouting at suspect)

Andrew Smith: Hit the suspect the upper temple on his left side. I remember that shot going out plain as day. We had no idea it was going out, but we heard it.

Jon Becker: Yep.

Andrew Smith: And then we heard the “Move, move, move”, and we knew that we were going to be affecting a rescue at that point.

Jon Becker: So you guys then was your immediate action plan prepped like who is covering the house from a team standpoint at the point the shot goes out?

Andrew Smith: So the North Davis team was covering it. They were housed to the north and then Salt Lake City had brought several guys up with their breachers to give them some security as they were moving up.

Jon Becker: Sure.

Andrew Smith: So when the shot went out and the entry was made, you had a combination of North Davis Metro SWAT and Salt Lake City SWAT who made entry into the house.

Jon Becker: Oh, interesting. And those two teams certainly don't train together.

Andrew Smith: They definitely don't train together.

Jon Becker: Did they intermingle or did they split or what did they do?

Andrew Smith: They intermingled and probably the saving grace that kept it from not being a cluster was somebody inside one of the first couple of operators in started telling people feeding off. So he would point “You left, you right, you left, you right”. So they intermingled, but because they were able to, they were doing a dynamic, it was pretty simple for them to just feed off of each other and move.

Jon Becker: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

Andrew Smith: So at that point, we confirmed the suspect's down. He's taken into custody and we had confirmation over the radio that all of our hostages are safe and secure.

Jon Becker: Fantastic. So talk to me a little bit about lessons learned on this because I mean this is a textbook resolution of a hostage situation.

Andrew Smith: Right.

Jon Becker: But three teams on scene, there's complexity here. What are your primary lessons learned from this thing?

Andrew Smith: There's so so many. Probably one of the first lessons learned is knowing and making sure your guys understand what their specific responsibilities are. We had some people which we had no idea until after the fact self-deploy into the TAR residence. A DPS SWAT guy was on his way home, heard everything go off and he had just injected himself and we had no idea that he was there.

Jon Becker: Oh boy.

Andrew Smith: On the SWAT side of it is Salt Lake City's breaching team. Our understanding was they were their mission was you go to the house, figure out your breach points and come back and so we can start rehearsing that with the deliberate action team. So it's making sure that your guys understand their roles and responsibilities exactly what their mission is and no freelancing was one of the biggest takeaways of that. The other thing that we had issues with was comms as far as yeah, three different teams operating. We were able to patch channels, but with that, it means you're losing some of the encryption stuff and everybody's able to listen to what you're doing. Making sure you have 360. I mean, it's SWAT 101, right? 360 coverage on a house with our marksman. We allocated all of our resources to the three-side of the residents. So we were not prepared for that.

Then in the negotiation side of it of having somebody who even though the negotiators were just on one side of the door in our command post, having somebody in there that's verifying the information that they're receiving and we're able to accurately get that information. So those are some of the key lessons learned as well as know what resources you have available. It was because of the relationship we have with Salt Lake City SWAT, West Valley SWAT, Unified PD SWAT. It was a quick phone call to say, "Hey, I need this and I need it now." And there were no questions asked. It was, "Yeah, we'll get you whatever you need."

Jon Becker: The teams are not training together. You just have personal relationships.

Andrew Smith: Correct. Yep. And that's the importance of having those relationships. That's how you start to build those where you don't have to ask the questions. It's, "Hey, I need this." and they're sending it. Now, we do send ours. All of our SWAT guys attend the Salt Lake City SWAT school. So, we have a much better relationship with Salt Lake. They go through Salt Lake's tactics, etc. So it's easy for us to have that relationship.

Jon Becker: So, yeah, because North Davis uses different tactics than you guys do.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: So, you are more aligned with Salt Lake, which is to your south.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: And then who are they more aligned with?

Andrew Smith: They're more aligned with Ogden Metro SWAT, which is to their north.

Jon Becker: Okay. So, basically the dividing line between the two teams is kind of also like a cultural tactical dividing line.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: Interesting. So, did you have any problems with the media?

Andrew Smith: We did have a problem with the media. In Utah, we have one news outlet that has a helicopter KSL. They ended up immediately as soon as we confirmed it was a hostage rescue, we put it in, we restricted the airspace and KSL did not listen to us. They refused to listen to the FAA and it caused a dilemma for us because if we were to go into a crisis now and you have a helicopter hovering overhead, you're not going to hear everything. So, not only that, but the news was filming our movements. So, if the suspect was to turn on anything, they could see exactly where we were at, all of our positions. So, it caused us an issue for about 40ish minutes before we were finally able to get them out of the area.

Jon Becker: Have you subsequently had a conversation with them about what they were?

Andrew Smith: We have not. The state of Utah has.

Jon Becker: Oh, like one of those talks.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, it went up that high.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So, the state had a conversation.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Got it. Got it. I mean in these situations, so you're the south team is not yet in a hostage rescue posture.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: The North team is in a hostage rescue posture, an emergency action posture. But it sounds like I mean this is a target of opportunity.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: How much coordination was there between the negotiators or tactical dispatchers and the team that the guy was coming back out?

Andrew Smith: That information was again not passed on. Now, a lot of that I can't fault the negotiators necessarily on that, right? The suspect says, "I'm going to come out in a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden he's at the door coming out." But the information was not put out to the team or even tactical command that they had formulated that plan again. He was going to show proof of life. So, when our marksman sees the door opening, he sees that they're not free to leave and has that opportunity to take the shot. But none of that information was ever passed on to the team. So nobody was ready for the shot to go.

Jon Becker: Wow. Yeah. But I mean it's interesting because like on the one hand you want that to be coordinated. Right?

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: But on the other hand, you got a shot at the guy, you got to take the shot because he you know he's already come out once and gone back in. What are the odds that he doesn't just turn around and go back in?

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Fortunately he hits and effectively hits and we're not having a conversation about him missing and then the guy went back inside.

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: But did that create any friction or tension because it's Salt Lake Marksman?

Andrew Smith: Salt Lake City Marksman.

Jon Becker: Who took the shot. and did that create any tension with the teams or was there any kind of weirdness afterwards?

Andrew Smith: No. There was some conflict between us and the negotiators which I think there's always that potential.

Jon Becker: There's always a tension.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Because you are built for two different resolutions to the problem.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: And it was in command, “I need you to be overly communicated to us”.

Andrew Smith: We will then decipher what information we need to put out to the team. But I need you to tell me, hey, we've formulated this plan again, it's in the process so that I can let the teams know, hey, at some point, be ready. This guy is going to come to the front door.

Jon Becker: Yeah, you may get a shot at him.

Andrew Smith: We never had that opportunity.

Jon Becker: Interesting.

Andrew Smith: So, there wasn't conflict there. We did have conflict though. This is one of those as a team leader at the time, you can't prepare for. My guys who had been rehearsing for hours, doing a deliberate assault rehearsal, saw Salt Lake City go up and not return. They saw they knew North Davis was up there during a crisis entry and they never were and it's an area that our team covers.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And I got a guy on my team who works for that agency in that city. My guys never saw the target property. They never got deployed on scene on that and they felt like we did not trust them.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: And so it definitely caused some conflict. It took us a couple months before we were able to resmooth things out and let them know it's not a trust issue. And that's again having your guys understand what their roles and responsibilities are.

Jon Becker: Well, you can see where they would draw that conclusion, right?

Andrew Smith: I can't fault them for that.

Jon Becker: We're here. Our commander, I mean, our ATL is at the command post. Like, we're going to be the immediate action or the direct action team. So, like, this is going to be our mission. And all of a sudden, the mission's over. It was a guy from Salt Lake that came in.

Andrew Smith: That took the shot and Salt Lake and North Davis made entry and we didn't do anything.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. I mean, I can't fault them one bit for that. I would have thought the exact same thing. And for a long time, me and Mike, we beat ourselves up on should we have put them up a lot sooner. But at the same time, if we're putting the deliberate action team up, it means that we are going to do a direct assault on that residence and we were not ready for that yet.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's an interesting culture. You can see where I can see both sides of that.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: What else was there? Like as you guys look back at this, is there anything else that you're like, “Man, we should have or we shouldn't have”?

Andrew Smith: The amount of time we've done this, the question always comes up of what did you guys think about a covert entry into the residence?

Jon Becker: Yeah, because at one point when the daughter came out.

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: How did she get out of the house?

Andrew Smith: She went out through her bedroom window in the basement. So we had an entry point. She left the window open.

Jon Becker: Okay.

Andrew Smith: We didn't think about it. It was not on our mind.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: Hindsight's 2020. If I could go back, we would probably put that into place. You got to have some dialed in dudes because…

Jon Becker: Yeah. Yeah. Covert entry into a hostage. I mean, that's what a lot of bigger teams would do.

Andrew Smith: Yes.

Jon Becker: Is stealth to contact the suspect. but it's certainly a higher risk operation than correct as it resolved the guy coming out and getting long gunned.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. So that's one of the biggest things like if we go back and do it all over again we would definitely that'd be one of the things that we would do differently. That would probably be one of our contingencies that we're planning for and fairly quickly if we have that opportunity.

Jon Becker: Got it. No hostages injured?

Andrew Smith: Ethan was injured from the round that the marksman shot off. It fragmented and he took a shrapnel just above his eye. That was really the only injury.

Jon Becker: Fragmented off of what?

Andrew Smith: We believe when it hit the suspect's head that the round fragmented and part of the jacket came apart and it ended up impacting him.

Jon Becker: Oh wow.

Andrew Smith: So interesting with that. the trajectory of the round, it narrowly misses Ethan and the round ends up as it goes through, deviates its pattern and goes up through the ceiling and roof and the round was never recovered.

Jon Becker: Oh, really?

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: So, it's through and through in the guy's head.

Andrew Smith: Correct.

Jon Becker: I'm assuming the suspect is probably dead right there.

Andrew Smith: Dead right there. He still had a little bit of a pulse. So the medics worked and they ended up flying him, but that was the paramedics decision, not us. We knew he was not going to make it.

Jon Becker: Yeah. So injuries inconsistent with life.

Andrew Smith: Yep.

Jon Becker: Got it. So looking back at it as you guys have now, the team has looked back, what have you changed in either the way you're training, the way you're operating? How did this event kind of inflect your team?

Andrew Smith: It changed our team in so many different ways. As far as training goes, we've definitely put an increased focus on hostage rescue training and planning for multiple contingencies and having the hostage taker in various locations. Probably more importantly is that understanding of roles and responsibilities and that just because you didn't get put up to the house doesn't mean that your role was any less than the marksman who took the shot. You had a specific mission point. The marksman had a specific mission point and now it's my job as the team leader now team commander to help you understand what that mission is and making sure you have a clear understanding of what your roles and responsibilities are, and that again it's no different than any other position on it that's just your assignment at the time of the operation.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: It's probably one of the biggest ones. The other one would be understanding and trying to find ways to have commonality with our support teams. We work again very closely with Salt Lake. We speak the same language. The way we call out things is very similar, but we're just so different from the North Davis team. We've had to modify some of those things as far as the number of houses, the team assignments. So those minor changes that went--

Jon Becker: You guys one, two, three, four and they are white, green, red, black.

Andrew Smith: Yeah.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Andrew Smith: So it's those little things of changing those or having an understanding of hey when we say this this is what it means and when you say this is what it means was big for us to do. And then just getting those continued relationship building. Surprisingly enough, we had a SWAT training two days before this incident took off. We had something completely different planned out, but Mike Sheldon, the team leader at the time, it had been a while since we had done a sniper initiated hostage rescue, and he changed the training that day to be sniper initiated hostage rescue.

Jon Becker: Prophetic.

Andrew Smith: So, everything was right at the forefront. Our guys were fresh with it. And then establishing that team culture of hey when command makes a decision it's not that we don't trust you guys and we had to reiterate that over and over and over. So those are probably the biggest things that's changed for us and we have had so many young guys on the team have reinstilled that culture and that understanding.

Jon Becker: Yeah, for sure it's a fantastic op. I appreciate you sharing it with us.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, it's been great. The only other thing that I would add to this, and this goes for all law enforcement officers, tactical teams, is whether or not we have such a great relationship with the Samuelson family as a result of this incident. This is where in a couple days I'm going to Piper's wedding. But if you're not taking the opportunity to build relationships with the people that you were having a positive impact in your community, you're missing the boat. Because when I go to my city council or my chief and I say, "I need this piece of equipment." They're my biggest advocates. They're going to say, "Yeah, this is what you need and we're going to do whatever they want." So when they're speaking to the media, whatever-- man, we're missing the boat in law enforcement with building those relationships with our community. And God, you can't miss that.

Jon Becker: No, for sure. We just recently released the Confronting Hate documentary about the Tree of Life. And the bond that formed between the team and the survivors at Tree of Life was unbelievable. And in this case, you can see why the family would certainly be bonded to the team because,  if I'm that dad, you guys saved my daughters.

Andrew Smith: Yeah. Again, I think that as law enforcement, we turn the page too quickly on those, right? Like we're just going on to the next call. We're going on to the next operation instead of taking the time to get to know them. And we've gained so much more perspective and they've gained perspective and closure as well. They didn't understand why it was taking so long for us to do different things and we had no idea what was actually going on inside the house until we're sitting down and talking to them, where nobody would have had that information otherwise.

Jon Becker: Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. Thanks for doing this, man.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

Jon Becker: Take care.