Police arrest “person of interest” in West Valley shooting

WEST VALLEY CITY — Police have arrested a man who may be connected to the shooting death of another man who was found dead in a West Valley restaurant parking lot.  Investigators are listing him as a “person of interest” so far.

The arrest happened in Sandy, and the SWAT team parked their Bearcat vehicle right on the front lawn to make their presence known.  Officers tell the Deseret News they didn’t want to take any chances during the arrest since they knew a weapon was involved.  Plus, they had to use a robot to clear the house since people inside have a history of being hostile toward police.

“We’ve taken this person of interest into custody and we’re doing some questioning, at this point,” West Valley Police Spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said.

The department is not releasing the name of the person they arrested, but the victim has been identified at 22-year old Jake Gengelbach.

“People reported multiple shots.  We recovered multiple casings in the same area as this body and we’re processing that evidence, now.  The body has been turned over to the Medical Examiner’s office,” Vainuku said.

Police are also not explaining what led them to the home in Sandy, but Vainuku says they had extremely little to go on when they arrived at the parking lot of the Hires Big H.

“We really didn’t have a whole lot of information to work off of.  We didn’t have a suspect vehicle description.  We didn’t have a suspect description,” she said.