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UPDATE: Family criticizes Farmington police after fatal shooting; man reportedly was armed

By Mark Shenefelt - | Mar 3, 2023

Photo supplied, Allan family via Facebook

Chase Allan in an undated photo.

FARMINGTON — A man shot to death in an encounter with police on Thursday was pulled over because his car lacked a license plate, with a placard declaring constitutional sovereignty in its place, Farmington Police Chief Eric Johnsen said Friday.

Johnsen said Farmington police had dealings with the family of Chase Allan before, including a 2022 case in which Allan’s mother, Diane Killian-Allan, fought driver license and vehicle registration infractions on the grounds that the city of Farmington “is a fiction” and that the state and federal governments hold no jurisdiction over her.

The Allan family, meanwhile, released a statement on Facebook later Thursday alleging that Chase Allan was a victim of a “brutal murder” by five Farmington officers. Allan was shot “while he was still in his automobile and likely terrified for his safety,” the family statement said.

In a statement by the department Thursday, police said Allan “was noncompliant,” that he refused an officer’s commands to get out of the car, and that as officers were pulling him from the vehicle, shots were fired.

A new statement Friday, citing observations from body camera footage, alleges Allan “rolled the window of the vehicle down only a few inches and refused to provide identification or cooperate with the officer in any way,” also saying the driver “asserted his independence from the laws of the land as well as his belief that he was not required to provide information to the officer, nor was he required to cooperate.”

Photo supplied, Allan family via Facebook

Chase Allan in an undated photo.

Asked Friday whether Allan was armed, Johnsen declined to comment, though Friday’s statement by the department claims an officer shouted “gun, gun, gun” as Allan was being removed from the car. Based on what can be seen in video, police say, Allan was wearing an empty holster and a handgun was visible on the driver’s-side floor of his vehicle.

Five officers were put on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation, per department policy. Johnsen said Friday that all five officers shot their firearms during the incident.

Johnsen said the officer who made the traffic stop was relatively new to the department and likely unaware of officers’ previous contacts with the Allans.

The placard in the license plate space “referred to sovereignty and whatnot,” Johnsen said. “All he (the officer) knew is that it didn’t have a plate in the spot where the plate belongs” and that the placard had “no validity.”

The family’s statement said Chase Allan was a Davis High School and Utah State University graduate. “He has been studying law the last few years and was a patriot doing what he could to defend the people’s freedom and liberty in his community,” according to the statement.

In Diane Killian-Allan’s fight against the traffic citations last year, she filed numerous documents in Farmington Justice Court challenging the local jurisdictions and asserting an absolute right to travel.

“It is a fact that the United States, with intent and great deception, uses the term ‘United States citizen’ to deprive the people of their rights, their birth rights, their property and freedom,” one of her declarations said. “And further, to relegate the status of the people to that of livestock.”

In another lengthy filing, she condemned various government entities, quoted the Bible and said the Social Security system and Social Security numbers constitute “the mark of the beast or at least its precursor.”

At her bench trial in September, Killian-Allan walked out and she was found guilty in absentia. Judge J.C. Ynchausti fined her $100.

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