Duchesne County Sheriff David Boren has issued a quick response to a federal lawsuit recently filed against the Sheriff, Sheriff’s Office and Sgt. Carl Reilley. According to the Duchesne County Sheriff’s Office, Sgt. Reilley responded to a suspicious incident call in Duchesne
on April 14th
in which an individual was looking into windows of a building shared by the library and the school district. The individual did not follow Sgt. Reilley’s orders to stop and keep his hands up and Sgt. Reilley placed the individual on the ground and handcuffed him. Utah Highway Patrol trooper Nathan Mikulich arrived soon after and the officers determined that the individual was a 14-year-old boy with autism. They immediately began working to reunite the teen with his mother, who is shown on the officer’s body camera footage as thanking both the officers for bringing her son home. The mother, Rose Vallejo, has now filed a federal lawsuit for the incident to which Sheriff Boren provided the following public response: “My office conducted a full and fair review of the
April 14th
encounter between Sgt. Carl Reilley and Ms. Vallejo’s teenage son. The members of our After Action Review Panel found that Sgt. Reilley was reasonable in his use of force and acted appropriately during the interaction, except for the instance where he mistakenly and briefly switched off his body camera. I support the panel’s findings that the use of force was reasonable and their recommendation that Sgt. Reilley receive a verbal warning for mistakenly turning off his body camera. As our internal investigation showed, this situation demonstrated the need for additional training for our deputies to help them more easily identify and interact with people in our community who have mental or physical disabilities or delays.” At the close of Sheriff Boren’s statement, he explained that a training class was scheduled before the lawsuit was filed and is taking place as planned on Wednesday, July 26th. The Sheriff’s Office posted the entire body camera footage and dash cam footage from this incident to the Duchesne County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.
