At the No Kings protest in Salt Lake City on Saturday, two armed security members spotted a man dressed all in black move away from demonstrators and to a secluded area behind a wall, the police said.
At that point, according to the police, the man started handling an AR-15-style rifle that he removed from his backpack. The security members drew their guns and confronted the man, who began running toward the crowd, holding his weapon in “a firing position,” the police said.
One of the security members fired three times, wounding the gunman and also striking a bystander, who was killed, the Salt Lake City Police Department said.
The police took the man with the rifle, who was identified as Arturo Gamboa, 24, into custody and charged him with murder, Chief Brian Redd of the Salt Lake City Police Department said at a news conference on Sunday.
The bystander, who was identified by the police as Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, of Utah, died at a hospital.
Chief Redd called the shooting “sudden and alarming.”
“No one should fear coming to a peaceful and lawful demonstration in our city,” Chief Redd said.
Eunic Epstein-Ortiz, a national spokeswoman for No Kings, the name of the nationwide protests against the Trump administration, condemned the violence.
“This movement is rooted in nonviolence, dignity, and justice — and we grieve any loss of life or injury,” Ms. Epstein-Ortiz said.
According to an affidavit, the police responded to reports of gunfire at the protest just before 8 p.m. local time. Officers found Mr. Ah Loo with a gunshot wound, and emergency responders administered aid.
Demonstrators directed officers to Mr. Gamboa, who was crouched among a small group of people and who had suffered a gunshot wound to his left side.
In addition to the rifle, the police recovered a gas mask and a backpack, according to the affidavit.
Chief Redd said that Mr. Gamboa, who wore a black mask to the protest, had no criminal history. It was not immediately clear on Sunday whether he had a lawyer.
The police also detained the two security members, who were wearing high-visibility vests and who were part of the event’s peacekeeping team, Chief Redd said. The members were not publicly identified.
The event’s peacekeepers were volunteers responsible for keeping attendees safe, according to Sarah Parker, a national coordinator with the 50501 Movement. The group is named after its goal of holding at least 50 protests against the Trump administration in 50 states, united under one movement.
There were an estimated 15 to 20 peacekeepers in Salt Lake City, Ms. Parker said. It was not clear whether all of them were armed.
Utah does not regulate how guns are carried in public, according to research from Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group.
Chief Redd said the police were investigating the training and preparation standards that were required for security staff at the event.
The police were aware that peacekeepers were at the protest, but it was unclear whether officers knew they were concealing and carrying firearms, said Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Police Department.
The security members told the police they monitored Mr. Gamboa after he moved away from the crowd and ducked behind a wall. One of them said he saw Mr. Gamboa take the rifle out of his backpack and “begin to manipulate it,” according to the affidavit.
The security members took out their guns and yelled to Mr. Gamboa to drop his weapon. Witnesses told the police that Mr. Gamboa had run toward the crowd of demonstrators, according to the affidavit.
Mr. Gamboa “did not fire a shot,” Chief Redd said at the news conference.
According to the affidavit, Mr. Gamboa acted “under circumstances evidencing a depraved indifference to human life, and knowingly engages in conduct that creates a grave risk of death to another individual and thereby causes the death of the other individual.”
As of Sunday night, the two security members had not been charged, Mr. Weisberg said. The police chief said the one who fired the shots was cooperating with investigators.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Detectives are still investigating “why Gamboa pulled out his rifle and began to manipulate it or why he ran from the peacekeepers when they confronted him,” the police said in a statement.
Chief Redd described the protest on Saturday in Salt Lake City as very peaceful. “This came out of nowhere,” he said of the shooting.
The demonstration was part of a nationwide movement in which crowds turned out in communities across the country to protest the Trump administration.
The No Kings rallies, as the demonstrations were known, were planned for the same day as a military parade in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary, which also coincided with President Trump’s 79th birthday.
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