This is a year old dashcam video from a police car capturing an incident in which a Utah man by the name of Wade Pennington was shot and killed by a South Jordan police officer Jared Nichols. Family of Wade Pennington filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Police and the agencies involved to get the case resolved and bring truth to light.
The calendar showed May of 2009 when 41 year old Wade Pennington was shot to death. Jared Nichols – the South Jordan police officer who fired the gun that ended the life of Wade Pennington was cleared by the West Jordan police department and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office but the family is suing the police because their story does not match that of the dash cam video.
Even though actual shooting and death of Wade Pennington cannot be seen in the video – because the camera was pointing in a different direction, recorded audio captured what was being said and when the shots were fired.
The incident started when the SUV driven by Wade Pennington was spotted by South Jordan Sgt. Allen Crist near businesses with high occurrence of burglaries. Sgt. Crist went after the potentially suspicious vehicle, only to have his suspicion confirmed when the vehicle runs over the curb and takes off.
Wade Pennington’s criminal record is quite large, but the police officers insist that they didn’t know it was him who was driving an SUV. Afterall, it was not registered under his name, but under the name of his fiancee.
The police pursuit leads into a cul-de-sac but Wade Pennington manages to get away. High speed pursuit exceeding 80 miles per hour continued through red lights, over a fire hydrant and into another cul-de-sac, but Wade Pennington managed to get away again.
Third time’s a charm and as SUV driven by Wade Pennington gets forced into another cul-de-sac, it gets rammed by the police cruiser driven by Jared Nichols and another cruiser driven by Sgt. Perez. Wade Pennington no longer pursues an escape attempt and remains stopped.
Officer Perez gets out of the cruiser and appeals to the man behind the wheel of an SUV to give in. Officer Jared Nichols gets out of his cruiser next and proceeds to open fire at Wade Pennington, mere seconds after getting the SUV to stop.
Jared Nichols can be heard in the video shouting, “Freeze or I’ll shoot you. Freeze!” Two gunfire shots follow and the officer calls for the suspect to Freeze one more time. One of the shots fired by officer Jared Nichols was fatal and ended the life of Wade Pennington. Even though the officer was cleared, the family of the deceased is suing the police for $1 Million and demands answers.
Based on the video above, do you think the police officer Jared Nichols had the right to shoot to kill or was the death of Wade Pennington an overkill?
