- A Murray police officer was legally justified in shooting Joshua Vanhorn on March 27, 2025, the district attorney said.
- Vanhorn threw knives at officers after barricading himself during an eviction.
- Vanhorn pleaded guilty to assault charges and was placed on three years of probation.
MURRAY — A Murray police officer was found to be legally justified in shooting a man in the hand after the man refused to leave an apartment and threw two knives at officers.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office announced Friday that officer Kevin Marquardson was justified in using deadly force against 34-year-old Joshua Matthew Vanhorn on March 27, 2025.
On that day, Vanhorn barricaded himself inside his apartment, 163 W. Fireclay Ave., after being notified he was being evicted and had 15 minutes to get out, according to District Attorney Sim Gill's final report. After Murray police arrived to assist in removing him, "officers heard Mr. Vanhorn lighting something inside his bedroom and observed flames coming toward them out cracks in the bedroom door."
Officers then went to a side bedroom window in an effort to see Vanhorn and broke out the glass.
"He's got an ax," Marquardson said just as Vanhorn "threw a knife out the window" that hit a second officer, according to the report.
After the knife was thrown, Marquardson fired his gun three times as another officer deployed pepper balls into the room. Vanhorn threw a second knife before falling to the ground. He was arrested a short time later and then taken to a local hospital to be treated for "a graze injury near his right wrist," the report states. He received four stitches.
When questioned, Vanhorn told investigators that when police showed up, he "hopefully tried to scare them away with the flammable," which he described as "shoe spray and a lighting" that he used by "shooting it through that crack of the door," according to the report.
Vanhorn later recounted throwing a "small little pocket knife" after the officers broke his window in another effort to "scare them away."
"But next thing I know, they shot and hit my hand, then I pretty much ducked," he told investigators.
Vanhorn was arrested and charged with several crimes. On Jan. 26 he took a plea in abeyance, pleading guilty to three counts of assault on an officer, a third-degree felony, in exchange for six other charges being dismissed. He was placed on probation for three years. Some of the terms of his probation include completing any treatment program his is ordered to take, obtain a substance abuse and mental health evaluation and submit to drug testing.
