3d ago

US | ‘No Kings’ demonstrator dies after being shot at Utah protest, police say

www.theguardian.com

‘No Kings’ demonstrator dies after being shot at Utah protest, police say

Man in custody after Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, was apparently shot by member of event’s peacekeeping team

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250616000337/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/15/no-kings-protest-salt-lake-city-utah-death-shooting

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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3d ago

‘No Kings’ demonstrator dies after being shot at Utah protest, police say

www.theguardian.com /us-news/2025/jun/15/no-kings-protest-salt-lake-city-utah-death-shooting

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3d ago

‘No Kings’ demonstrator dies after being shot at Utah protest, police say

www.theguardian.com /us-news/2025/jun/15/no-kings-protest-salt-lake-city-utah-death-shooting

26 comments

For the people who didn't read the article, or found it confusing, here's some context, put into a timeline from the slightly confusing article:
Arturo Gamboa was marching with the crowd in Salt Lake City, when he separated from the march, moved behind a wall and returned with a rifle. Two of the march's peacekeepers saw this and confronted him with their handguns drawn. At this point, Gamboa raised his rifle into a firing position and ran toward the crowd. One of the march's peacekeepers fired three rounds. He hit Gamboa, and also hit innocent bystander Arthur Folasa Ah Loo. Ah Loo has died.
Not from the article: there's a video circulating of a bunch of people sitting in an entryway. One of the people there picks up a backpack belonging to someone else and moves away, saying "He's got a rifle in here". They call over the police, who force the guy down and arrest him.
The video is from when the crowd is sheltering after the shots were fired. Gamboa, who was injured, tried to hide inside the crowd. One of the people there noticed the shape of the hidden rifle, and the blood on his hand, took the backpack away and they called the cops over.
Edit: I went to the SLC sub on The Other Place:
Video of the first shots being fired (no gore) Note that it looks like the news article may have the confrontation / running away / firing sequence out of order. I'm gonna turn off notifications and you guys can debate this among yourselves.
Video of the guy finding the gun and calling the cops over
Video of people helping others over a wall to escape the area. Among the people helping others up: Batman!
- You were able to write a more clear straight forward summary of information than the trained Guardian reporter who put together this story.
  It goes to show how major media go out of their way to share simple straight forward information in the most complex way in order to maintain some strange control over the narrative of any given event.
  
  Drives me nuts when I have to skim like 6 paragraphs to actually get to the thing the headline described.
  Nope, don't care that the neighbor Janet heard a noise down the street but "couldn't tell what was happening". No, I do not care what about the mayor's recent tree planting initiative. Why are you telling me that this was happening "only 3 blocks down from where the little league team, the Munchkins Brigade, were playing"? Is that relevant?
  Just tell me what happened! Who did what to whom, how, and why?! Why should I care? Is that so fucking hard?! That's all I'm here for. It's literally your entire job. But no, they need people to scroll past 13 in-your-face ads crowding out the actual words of the articles before they leave the page. So now journalists and editors are literally trained to bury the lede under miles of foreplay bullshit. I hate the modern internet.
- Wow thats... unfortunate for arthur. Why was the dude pulling a rifle? Agitator?
  
  Seems like he was going for something similar to the guy who drove a car through one of the protests. Not agitating just another right wing terrorist.
- In th s context, what is a "peacekeeper"? Are we talking police?
  
  No, they were people who were associated with the march organizers who were looking out for people doing a terrorism.
Fuck I'd hate the be the guy who stopped him. Non-zero chance that he didn't actually stop a mass shooting, and ending up being the only party present who actually killed an innocent person. Seriously, I hope that guy has strong friend / family support and really good therapy, he's gonna need it all.
"... by a member of the event's peacekeeping team". Peacekeeping. Sure.
- Well, with fairness they were shooting at an armed gunman.
  They just uh.. didn’t land all their shots on target.
- You know, a good guy with a gun. The only thing that can save you from a bad guy with a gun.
  
  To be fair, they very much did stop someone whose intent seemed to be mass violence. The man who died caught a stray, which is still a tragedy but it could have gone so much worse
- I think they meant 'Piece Keeping' ... people who keep pieces, aka a gun or firearm ... it's people who keep guns
Wow sometimes there's a story that just proves that people don't bother to read the article at all. It's the third post I've seen about this story and in every single one of them at least half the comments didn't bother to read the article and have no idea what they're talking about.
- A lot of the reporting on it is very poorly written. Weird timelines, ambiguous use of "he" for three different people, etc.
  My wife and I had to read it like 3 times before we got a clear picture of it
- This is why I always include a summary when I post an article. People don't want to click away from whatever app is in front of them.
Wow this fuck up!
What a shithole country.
Shot by who??
- The man, Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, had apparently been shot by a man who had been part of the event’s peacekeeping team
  Second sentence of the article.
  
  Why is it missing from the headline? Passive voice strikes again.
  And what is a 'peacekeeping team'? Surely that is not the police because then it would say police. Right?

26 comments