June 15 (UPI) — At least one person was critically injured Saturday in a shooting at a protest against President Donald Trump in Salt Lake City. It came hours after two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were shot dead by a gunman.
The “No Kings” protest, one of many that took place across the United States, was attended by some 10,000 people, according to preliminary estimates from the Salt Lake City Police Department.
The shooting happened around 7:56 p.m. when officers heard gunshots in front of a luxury high-rise residential building on State Street, a main thoroughfare through the city leading to the Utah State Capitol in an area with local, state and federal government facilities.
“Officers responded to the scene and found one person with a critical gunshot wound. Those injuries are considered life-threatening,” police said in the news release.
With information provided by witnesses, police tracked “one of the involved parties” and arrested him nearby. His identity was also not provided, but he was said to have been taken to a local hospital to be treated for serious injuries from a gunshot wound and remains under police supervision.
Two other people were also taken into custody later, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The motives for the shooting are still under investigation and the roles of each of the four people remain unclear, but Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told KSL.com that it appeared the people were involved “at some level” in the protest.
It was also not clear what charges the three people who were detained might face.
“I want to urge everyone in the public to be calm, to give one another grace and to look out for one another tonight and in the coming days,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, as reported by KUER, calling the violence “horrific.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, called the shooting “a deeply troubling act of violence that has no place in our public square.”