A man who was believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City shot at a person who was brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, striking both the rifleman and a bystander who later died at the hospital, authorities said Sunday.
Police took the alleged rifleman, Arturo Gamboa, 24, into custody Saturday evening on a murder charge, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference. The bystander was Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, a fashion designer from Samoa.
Detectives don’t yet know why Gamboa pulled out a rifle or ran from the peacekeepers, but they accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death. The Associated Press did not immediately find an attorney listed for Gamboa or contact information for his family in public records.
What I’m reading is that the guy with a rifle, Gamboa, has attended protests armed before. It looks like the peacekeeper thought he was a shooter, but there’s no evidence so far Gamboa did anything illegal.
That is what I’m thinking. At first I went along with the speculation that Gamboa was intending to shoot into the crowd. But after reviewing the video, it looks more like he was just walking and open carrying with the rifle pointed down. It might not have been the best move in hindsight, but he had the legal right to do so.
Also after listening to his Slugmag interview I’m just not seeing the motivation for a mass shooting. Unless maybe he intended to shoot cops or something. He just doesn’t seem to fit the profile & ideology of a mass shooter.
Edit: the interview if anyone is curious https://www.slugmag.com/soundwaves/episode-364-rade/
Which video are you talking about? Please provide a link.
EDIT: I think this is it. The short snippet shows the barrel pointed down. Having a masked gunman in a crowd of people is terrifying af!
Helpful link, thank you
Dressed in all black with a mask and a gun walking briskly toward a crowd…
It looks like the peacekeeper thought he was a shooter
As he should.
Brandish a firearm in public, you are attempting to intimidate others, so you’ll get treated like the terrorist you are.
That’s not the law, or reality in America. It’s a regular occurrence at certain protests for people to open carry weapons. Not saying I would do it, but it’s not sufficient cause to shoot someone.
Open carry and brandish have distinct legal definitions.
This gif isn’t loading on my phone, but supposedly it’s the same as a video I had seen earlier - it shows Gamboa walking towards the street but his rifle is pointed down. It also shows the yellow vested people pointing their guns toward him. If the gif also doesn’t work for you, scroll further up in the thread to at least see screenshots. The op of that thread, Chad Loder, has been commenting on this shooting a fair amount. https://bsky.app/profile/nope-notnow.bsky.social/post/3lrp7xsx3vs22
Oh to be clear I wasn’t arguing the reality, but brandishing is what he’s accused of and that’s legally very different from open carrying.
Also it wasn’t open carried to the protest, it was retrieved mid protest from a hidden location
This gif isn’t loading on my phone, but supposedly it’s the same as a video I had seen earlier - it shows Gamboa walking towards the street but his rifle is pointed down. It also shows the yellow vested people pointing their guns toward him. If the gif also doesn’t work for you, scroll further up in the thread to at least see screenshots. The op of that thread, Chad Loder, has been commenting on this shooting a fair amount. https://bsky.app/profile/nope-notnow.bsky.social/post/3lrp7xsx3vs22
Brandishing a weapon is not the same as carrying it. Brandishing is what you do when moving the firearm in a way that indicates you are threatening to shoot. In the worst case, it involves pointing the firearm at someone.
If someone purposely points a firearm at you, you have every right to fire in self defence. At least those were the rules of engagement we were taught regarding interactions with civilians at home when I was in the army.
This gif isn’t loading on my phone, but supposedly it’s the same as a video I had seen earlier - it shows Gamboa walking towards the street but his rifle is pointed down. It also shows the yellow vested people pointing their guns toward him. If the gif also doesn’t work for you, scroll further up in the thread to at least see screenshots. The op of that thread, Chad Loder, has been commenting on this shooting a fair amount. https://bsky.app/profile/nope-notnow.bsky.social/post/3lrp7xsx3vs22
I was commenting on the general situation of “are you justified in treating someone brandishing a weapon as a lethal threat?”, not the specifics of this situation. I haven’t seen the video, so won’t comment on whether this person specifically was brandishing or not.
The only people brandishing in the video are the self-described “peacekeepers” who are aiming their pistols into the crowd. The open-carrier isn’t even looking their way and appears just as surprised as everyone else when one of these peacekeepers starts blasting (with minimal awareness or concern for whomever else was downrange).
I wasn’t commenting on whether or not anyone was brandishing, but on the fact that it is reasonable to treat someone brandishing a firearm as a lethal threat.
In short: You are justified in shooting someone who is armed and clearly indicates they are about to open fire on you. You don’t need to wait for them to get off a shot before firing back.
In the whole, I’m very glad my country isn’t as heavily armed as the US, and this is one of the reasons. When a bunch of people are walking around with guns, the potential for situations getting out of hand and people getting killed is much larger. It’s enough that someone misunderstands someone else’s intentions, and you can suddenly have people shooting. I would honestly be terrified if everywhere I went there were people that could potentially kill me at a moments notice without even getting close to me.
Isn’t this what the NRA wants? Sounds like a good guy with a gun stopped a potential mass shooting.
I just posted elsewhere, but in short, there’s no proof that Gamboa brandished a gun, and I’ve seen a video which looked like he was pointing the rifle downward. Not saying it can’t go the other way once more info comes out, but just like when you shouldn’t automatically take the police’s word when they shoot someone, we shouldn’t take the word of private security.
Pedantic arguments about the word brandish are pointless. He was walking through a crowd with a a rifle and wearing a mask. We don’t like it when the cops do it and shouldn’t tolerate it when anyone else does either. It’s too risky for us all and mass shootings are a real danger here.
Is it pedantic when it means the difference between life and death?
I’m not saying I agree with someone open carrying at a protest. I’m saying if that’s all they’re doing it’s not appropriate to charge them with murder, when if they were only open carrying it would be the security officer who overreacted and shot an innocent bystander to death.
A situation we could have avoided if there were stricter gun controls, but there aren’t.
I agree with you, but if you look at the video he’s not pointing it down holding it weakly, he’s got it pointed slightly below waist level basically ready to fire. It seems like he’s not ABOUT to fire, but he’s in a combat stance with the rifle and his hand position being ready and shooting in less than a second. If you hadn’t been looking at him the whole time I could easily see someone thinking he had just raised his weapon and was about to shoot.
words have meanings. open carrying and brandishing are very different, and one can get you, quite justifiably, killed. if this guy was brandishing his firearm, then it’s no surprise that he got shot at. if he was open carrying, as i’m inclined to believe, then he should have not gotten shot at.
I know Arturo, he was there to support the protests. He was NOT going to do a mass shooting, as he has taken his gun to at least one other protest with no incident.
How are people supposed to know his intentions?
Yeah in another thread there’s an interview of the rifleman from his time in a punk band talking about the system. This is likely going to be a shit show when the partisan pundits pick it up
Yea what I read was that he was “pointing a rifle at protesters”.
Don’t aim a gun at a person if you are not ready to fight and die.
I would argue this is not only self defence, but public defence.
Edit: looks like its not completely clear if he was brandishing the rifle or just open carying, obviously my argument doesn’t technically hold water if he was just open carrying.
I would also argue that open carying a weapon well know for use in mass shootings right next to a large crowd is probably a dumb idea even if it’s legal to do.
Exactly. The peacekeeper who shot into the crowd should be charged instead.
I dunno about that. The peacekeeper saw the dude go retrieve a rifle, confronted him, and he ran aiming the rifle at the crowd.
I suppose your argument is that the guy hadn’t actually pulled the trigger when the peacekeeper acted? That seems insane to me.
The shooter and another person in a neon vest allegedly saw Gamboa separate from the crowd of marchers in downtown Salt Lake City, move behind a wall and withdraw a rifle around 8 p.m., Redd said.
When the two men in vests confronted Gamboa with their handguns drawn, witnesses said Gamboa raised his rifle into a firing position and ran toward the crowd, said Redd.
There’s no confrontation in the video. The open-carrier was walking calmly and not even facing the “peacekeepers” while they were aiming their pistols at him and into the crowd. The open-carrier doesn’t start running until shots ring out, and appears just as surprised as everyone else. This “peacekeeper” should definitely be charged for endangering the lives in that crowd, if not for manslaughter.
Can you please post a link to the video?
Sure, here’s the same link posted elsewhere in the comments: https://imgur.com/a/z3J25EB
Thanks, everything I had seen before was just a video of people running after hearing gunshots.
No confrontation is in the article. If you have another source that says there was, please provide it.
Edited the order of events in my comment. Sounds like the confrontation didn’t happen until after he grabbed his rifle.
Oh look. A conservative traitor instigated the violence.
I am many shades of unsurprised.
Domestic terrorists folks. Every last one. Because they’ve all chosen to support it despite knowing. Time to start treating them like the terrorists they are.
It’s being reported that Arturo is an activist who regularly open-carries in support at protests. Meanwhile you’re making confidently incorrect claims that he is a conservative traitor and terrorist. Stay classy.
Fox news? Lmao
You mean the thugs hired by 50501?
I know Arturo, and if you did any sort of due diligence, you’d know he’s a hardcore leftist.
If you think Arturo was a ‘conservative traitor’, I think you have more problems with simply accepting what our right wing media apparatus chooses to push.
Maybe guns are bad, and maybe if you bring a rifle to a high tense situation and hold it in any manner that may seem threatening, you deserve to get shot. Super sad that an innocent died. Had the “good guy” with a gun hit the target only, then at least there would only be one less moron carrying an AR-15 today, not a sad casualty.
Maybe guns are bad, and maybe if you bring a rifle to a high tense situation and hold it in any manner that may seem threatening, you deserve to get shot.>
Maybe guns are tools, and maybe if the majority of protesters were visibly armed then the police would not escalate tense situations to high intensity riot conditions and beat the protesters. Had the state had to hesitate to use violence on peaceful protesters, at least there would be a bunch less abuse of the media and civilians.
The Black Panthers proved this, which is why Reagan started gun control. Modern open carry armed protests have also proven it’s still true. Cops are cowards, Uvalde proved that, even with superior equipment they will find a reason not to start. Getting the left to disarm and put their protection into the hands of the very governmental authority they continually protest against has got to be the biggest con job in history
Yup. If you brandish a firearm in public, you are clearly trying to intimidate others. You deserve to be shot down.
Does this apply to the people that open carry AR-15s when they go to McDonalds?
Yes. Ammosexuals should be illegal.
How would we go about that?
I can’t tell if there’s a /s missing there or not, but if there is, this person allegedly pointed the gun into a crowd and advanced showing intent. I would also agree that even in jest, if you brandish, you are signalling intent and immediately forfeit your right to life.
Welcome to a country where “protest peacekeepers” carry guns, and can shoot into the crowd and put the blame on someone else whi just happened to be armed as well.
Do you, American brothers, realize the sheer level of insanity you live in?
I assume the national guard and marines will roam the syreets of SLC now.
The comments are too fucking confusing. Who shot who?
I think it was like this: A was protesting, B takes out a rifle and aims at protesters. Police (or whatever the ‘peacekeeping team’ consists of) start shooting at B but they missed aim training on thursday so they kill A instead.
Really? Come on man…
so gamboa pulled out a gun, aimed it at protesters,Gamboa was protesting while legally open carrying his rifle at the protest, in support of the protesters, and got shot. the person who shot him also shot a bystander. gamboa is being charged with murder, because of the weird federal murder laws in america.~~ i’ve read that gamboa is a leftist, so why did he brandish his rifle at the protesters?~~I’ve protested standing directly next to the man and his guns multiple times, the official story here is a bunch of horseshit. Only one person committed gun violence and it wasn’t the well known gun rights and safety advocate.
As always, ACAB.
Why bring up ACAB in this situation? The police were not involved in either side of the shooting. Per the article’s description the rifleman pulled out a rifle and appeared to be readying to fire before a protest peacekeeper (not police) shot and injured him using a handgun. Unfortunately in the cross fire one protester was killed by the peacekeeper but it looks like this prevented a potential mass shooting event.
Unfortunately in the cross fire one protester was killed by the peacekeeper but it looks like this prevented a potential mass shooting event.
No. Some idiot larper fired into a crowd and then hit and killed the wrong person. He’s the one that should be in custody.
Doesn’t actually look like the cops were involved in the situation at all.
You posted this and even you didn’t read the article?
2025 in a nutshell.
2025? This is internet tradition going much further back. No, not Reddit. MUCH older.
Not even internet, all news media back to local TV and and newspapers. Not all journalism is created equal, it’s just easier to spot blatantly incorrect info when you also have videos posted to confirm yourself.
I based my comment on the following: the peacekeepers weren’t supposed to be carrying weapons, yet one who did AND shot into a crowd - killing an innocent bystander - isn’t charged. But they do charge another guy who had a weapon but never fired a shot.
So again, as always, ACAB.
Maybe next time, instead of assuming, you could just ask.
So you still haven’t read the article you posted, huh?
The state’s attorney can bring charges after an investigation, not some beat cop who stumbled into the situation.
Your hate is blinding you to reality my guy.
Pathetic loser says what?
So, you’re a pathetic loser, as you said the thing pathetic losers say.
Sounds like the cops are in the right here…
Gamboa was the idiot who pulled his rifle on a crowd of peaceful protestors.
The protestors, being smart, had peacekeepers who were defensively carrying.
One of the peacekeepers shot at Gamboa, and ended up hitting Ah Loo, who was (apparently) an innocent bystander.
Gamboa broke the cardinal rule of carrying a gun: don’t point it at anything that you aren’t planning to kill. Defensive peacekeeper took the appropriate action in disarming a very valid threat (especially considering the actions that MAGAts had been taking on protestors lately). Cops arrested Gamboa.
I’ve got sympathy for Ah Loo (and the peacekeeper that shot him)…but that death is on Gamboa. That’s felony homicide right there. FAFO, Gamboa.
Lol. You are one dumb loser.
