SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns are still reeling after a deadly shooting occurred during Saturday's “No Kings” protest in downtown Salt Lake City.
“It was happy, it was so happy,” said Carl Moore. “I had no idea this was going to happen.”
“What we thought was being the right thing ended up with us all almost losing our life,” said Sean Billings.
According to the Salt Lake City Police Department, 24-year-old Arturo Gamboa had an AR-15-style rifle in his backpack. Police said two men in yellow high-visibility vests were a part of the “peacekeeping group” assigned to assist with safety. The peacekeepers said Gamboa removed his rifle from his backpack and began to lift it.
Witnesses said he began to run into the crowd with the rifle. That’s when peacekeepers fired three rounds, fatally hitting 39-year-old Arthur Folasa Ah Loo (also known as "Afa"), who has made multiple appearances on FOX 13's lifestyle show, "The Place."
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Moore captured the shooting on video.
“In my head, it was 'pop, pop, pop.' I didn't know where it came from,” he said. "And then I'm looking around, and then I see people scattering from here. So obviously it's, I've got to get here to see, you know, what's happening."
Moore said he immediately went to try to help Ah Loo on the ground.
“I'm looking at him, and in my head, I'm like, he's obviously gone because of the wound that I saw,” Moore said.
Watch Moore's video below:
Neisha Romney and her fiancé Sean Billings were next to Ah Loo during the protest.
“We did see the bullet go through him. He was alive, and he was happy. He was with the protests, and the next minute, he was on the ground,” Romney said.
Billings said that during the moment of gunfire, he was leaning down to pick up a sign that his fiancée dropped.
“The bullet missed me and hit the guy. But if I would have got up a certain way, I would have been shot in the head,” Billings said.
According to a probable cause statement, Gamboa engaged in conduct that created a risk of death to another individual and ultimately caused death of another individual. Therefore, he is being charged with first-degree murder.
Despite what happened, witnesses told FOX 13 News that this will not stop them from protesting in the future.
“If we don't keep going, our voice is not going to be heard, and what we need is our voice to be heard so that we can live in a better society that is more respectful,” Moore said.
“I'll tell you right now, even though that happened, our voices will still be heard,” Romney added.
