CEDAR CITY  — The Cedar City woman shot by officers during a standoff in late January had her life saved by them, her attorney admitted during a court hearing.

As previously reported, Shawna Owens, 37, was wounded by gunfire during an incident that unfolded on the evening of Jan. 29 near the Three Peaks area of Iron County, just west of Enoch. After being flown to the hospital, where she was treated for her injuries, Owens was booked into Iron County Jail on multiple charges the following week, on Feb. 6.

At a detention review hearing in 5th District Court on Feb. 27, defense attorney Trevor Terry told Judge Matthew L. Bell that his client was “lucky to be here today.”

“Ironically, had she not been shot, she probably wouldn’t be here now,” Terry said. “Because she probably would have taken the time to finally do what she was threatening, which is to take her life.”

Added Terry:

It’s an important adage that you are innocent until proven guilty. But, Your Honor, this is not a case where we will be seeking to prove the innocence or make the state prove the guilt of Shawna. Seeing the video, seeing the events that transpired, we absolutely recognize that Shawna put herself in a situation that night that resulted in her being shot multiple times, put her in a position where officers had to make that split-second decision on whether to possibly end someone’s life in protection of others. 

Cedar City News recently obtained a copy of the four-page investigative summary report from the Iron County Attorney’s Office, along with an 11-minute, 26-second compilation video that includes footage from the responding officers’ body cameras, along with audio from the 911 calls to dispatch.

An excerpted version of that video, which is just under three minutes long, can be viewed in the player above this story. Warning: viewer discretion is advised, as the footage may be disturbing and traumatic. Please note that some portions of the video that show first aid being rendered have been blurred by law enforcement officials, while other parts have been zoomed in and repeated in slow motion. 

Also, although the footage mostly appears in chronological order, the relevant portions depicting the gunfire are repeated as different camera angles are shown.

According to the Iron County Attorney’s report, Enoch City Police officer Devin Kwiatkowski and Iron County Sheriff’s deputy Ryan Turk both discharged their weapons at Owens, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of a white minivan. According to the report, the officers made multiple verbal commands for Owens to drop the weapon she was holding and show her hands. 

On the video, the officers can be heard shouting phrases such as “Drop the weapon!” “Please put the gun down!” and “Show me your hands without the gun!”

After a few minutes, both officers reported that Owens had pointed the gun in their direction.

“She’s pointing gun at us … she’s pointing gun at Devin,” Turk can be heard saying on the body camera footage. 

Then, approximately 15 seconds later, the passenger window begins to roll down and the driver appears to point a gun out of the opening, upon which both officers open fire, shattering the window. 

The video footage shows Kwiatkowski discharging his pistol several times from the driver’s side of his patrol vehicle while Turk fires an automatic rifle from the other side of the vehicle.

“She started messing with the windows again and she rolled the passenger window down and then she just leaned over and pointed [the gun], and that’s when I started shooting,” the county attorney’s report quotes Kwiatkowski as saying during a post-incident interview.

About one minute after firing the flurry of shots, the officers can be seen on the video approaching the van, where they find Owens face down on the ground just outside the driver’s side door.

“Once there was no longer a threat posed by the suspect, officers immediately began to render first aid and perform lifesaving care,” the county attorney’s report notes.

According to the report, officers found the suspect’s .22 caliber handgun with a round jammed in the slide, along with empty shell casings from rounds that were fired. The weapon can be seen in the video resting atop the front passenger’s seat.

The video also includes some body camera footage from a second Enoch City Police officer, who can be seen drawing his pistol and standing next to Turk. However, that officer is not named in the report, as he did not fire his weapon. Additional footage from a different law enforcement vehicle parked on the dirt road some distance away is also shown, providing a view from the opposite direction. 

As seen in the time stamps on the footage, the officers first arrived on the scene where the van was parked at approximately 5:44 p.m., almost exactly four minutes prior to when the shots were fired.

The officers had been dispatched to the area at approximately 5:35 p.m., on a report of a suspicious person with a firearm who had allegedly pointed a gun at a 19-year-old man. Another 911 call came in regarding a suicidal subject who had been drinking alcohol, and the responding officers were able to determine the two calls were related.

According to the Iron County Attorney’s Office report, both of the officers who fired their weapons during the incident have been cleared of wrongdoing, in accordance with state statute to Utah Code, section 76-2-404.

“The suspect’s actions posed an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury,” states the Iron County Attorney’s report, which is dated March 10. “Therefore, Officer Kwiatkowski’s and Deputy Turk’s use of deadly force was reasonable and justified.”

Owens, who has been incarcerated in Iron County Jail since Feb. 6, faces a total of nine criminal charges in connection with the incident, including two counts of assault on a peace officer with a dangerous weapon, a second-degree felony; one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony; three counts of felony discharge of a firearm; and three misdemeanor counts related to DUI, being an alcohol-restricted driver and carrying a dangerous weapon while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

During her preliminary hearing on Monday of this week, Owens entered not guilty pleas on all nine counts after being bound over for trial as charged. Her attorney Terry requested a three-day jury trial. Although Terry once again asked Judge Bell to consider setting a bail amount, the court ordered that Owens continue to be held without bail.

During Owens’ earlier detention hearing on Feb. 27, Terry had argued that his client be allowed to be released on bail.

“She has been in custody of some sort for approximately 30 days, has definitely had time to reflect on these issues, has had a chance to decide that she wants more from life than where she was putting herself that night,” Terry said at the hearing, adding, “She is willing to do the work so that, hopefully, as ironic, once again, at the situation is, that an officer can feel that by shooting Shawna, he was actually saving her life.” 

Terry said it’s not often that he has the opportunity to go before a judge and talk about how guilty his client is.

“But it’s the truth,” he said. “And we just need some time to kind of work through that. I’d like to have my client have a chance to start making things right.”

Bell then said he appreciated and respected Terry’s candor.

“I believe he truly wants to be helpful to you,” Bell told Owens. “And the things he’s suggesting aren’t outrageous. You need help, and I don’t think anyone questions that. I don’t think anyone questions the danger of the situation that was created by your actions.”

Nevertheless, Bell ruled against allowing Owens to post bail, saying, “It’s that danger, the situation that got you there, that just makes it too risky for me to release you.”

Added Bell: 

None of those officers wanted to go to work that day and have to take someone’s life, justified or not. As Mr. Terry said, whether the action is justified or not, the bullet still goes through the person hit. And if it is justified, the person that pulled the trigger takes no joy in that. It can be life altering for all involved. … Thankfully, the results weren’t more tragic.

Owens’ next scheduled hearing is a pretrial conference in 5th District Court on May 8 at 1:30 p.m., to be conducted online via WebEx.

This report is based on statements from court documents and law enforcement officials and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

Defense attorney Trevor Terry on Thursday morning gave Cedar City News a statement to further clarify his client’s position. 

“Although we’re not second guessing the officers’ decisions that night to open fire, we do deny that she actually pointed the gun at anyone that night,” Terry said, adding, “Someone getting shot doesn’t automatically mean they’re guilty of pointing at an officer. There are many situations where officers may be justified to use force. Our decision not to call that into question at this time does not equate to an admission that Shawna is guilty of the second-degree assaults and the third-degree assaults which involved her allegedly pointing the gun at officers and a citizen.”

Updated April 6, 11:30 a.m. to include further comments from the defense attorney.

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