Injured Kaysville officers speak out about suicidal incident

KAYSVILLE, Utah – Kaysville police released the surveillance video Thursday showing officers trying to talk a man from committing suicide by setting himself on fire.

On April 5, officers responded to a convenience store, where a man was in the restroom. He had doused himself with gasoline and was holding a lighter.

After seeing the video for the first time, officers spoke with reporters about the incident.

“My job is to save lives, and if I have to risk mine to save someone else’s I’m going to do that,” Officer Robert Jackson said speaking on a video feed from his hospital room at the University of Utah.

He was standing right next to the man in the restroom at the rear of the convenience store, trying to convince him not to flick the lighter.

Other officers had responded, and were all in close proximity when flames erupted. Everybody scattered.

“I wanted to make sure that I could do everything I could do to help everybody get out of that situation as fast as we could. Unfortunately, I caught fire and that was scary,” Jackson said.

Jackson has 3rd degree burns on his legs, and will have surgery soon.

Officer Cade Bradshaw, still wearing bandages on his elbows, said he had burns to his face and head. He’s off duty for now, recovering at home.

“It happened so quickly,” Bradshaw said. “You kind of go into survival mode and just try to get out of there and hope to get the other officers out of there.”

Sgt. Shawn Mckinnon grabbed a fire extinguisher and quickly got the flames out.

“It’s tough to watch,” he said referring to the surveillance footage. “Very hard to watch. It’s just amazing that everybody is alive and really doing as well as they are.”

“I think we all go out knowing that we do this job to help protect people and at the end of the day, we’re all alive and that says a lot about all of us,” Officer Lacy Turner said.

Kaysville Police Chief Sol Oberg credited his officers for their quick response and keeping others, who were inside the store at the time, safe. He also said this is still an active investigation.

“We’re still trying to identify some witnesses; people who were in line with him and some people who had conversations with him that we need to speak to. We’ve also got some things at the crime lab that we’re having tested,” he said.

Stay with KSLTV.com for updates on the investigation.