- Salt Lake County Attorney Sim Gill announced no charges for officers in the December arrest of Clarence Randolf Henry.
- Henry died after ingesting drugs post-arrest; no evidence of force was found, Gill's report says.
- The medical examiner cited drug toxicity as the cause of death.
WEST VALLEY CITY — A 30-year-old man who died after allegedly ingesting drugs, and shortly after being arrested in December, does not fit the definition of an officer-involved critical incident, Salt Lake County Attorney Sim Gill announced Friday.
Therefore, the two Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies involved in the arrest of Clarence Randolf Henry will not be criminally charged, Gill said.
On Dec. 20, a multiagency task force pulled over Henry's vehicle to make an arrest on an outstanding drug-related warrant. After being placed in handcuffs, Henrey sat on a curb with his hands behind his back as officers searched his car, according to Gill's final report. About 20 minutes later, he asked for assistance standing up.
A little more than half an hour after he was taken into custody, "Mr. Henry is seen having obvious difficulty breathing and is in physical distress, and as officers tell him to 'spit it out' and ask him if he needs air," the report states.
Officers ask dispatchers to send a medical crew because "we think he may have swallowed some drugs," according to the report.
Three minutes later, "officers observed that he was foaming at the mouth again," and police asked medical crews to hurry.
Henry was moved into a "recovery position" and was given two doses of naloxone. Less than an hour later, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital, the report states. The Utah State Medical Examiner's Office determined Henry "died as a result of drug toxicity: cocaine, ethanol and midazolam," according to the report.
"Importantly, the medical examiner did not find any evidence of physical force used on Mr. Henry during (the) autopsy," the report states.
Two detectives who were part of the arrest declined to be interviewed for the use of force investigation, and there were no body camera videos of the incident.
"While we were unable to review any direct evidence of (the detectives') interactions with Mr. Henry during the initial portion of the stop, we are not aware of any other evidence in this case that would suggest that any officer used unlawful force with Mr. Henry during his arrest," according to the report.
And based on the medical examiner's report, "We believe Mr. Henry's death was primarily the result of causes unrelated to the officers' actions during the arrest" and "does not qualify as an officer-involved critical incident under Utah law," Gill's report concluded.
