"I've stated all along, the evidence would show I'd be acquitted," Cowley said after Thursday's ruling. "It feels good." 
 
 Third District Judge L.A. Dever dismissed the case after listening to three days of testimony during a preliminary hearing that ended Wednesday. 
 
 Before announcing his decision, Dever went over the manslaughter charge, in which prosecutors proposed two theories of the alleged crime: that Cowley recklessly caused Willard's death; or in the alternative, that Cowley caused the woman's death under a reasonable belief that his actions were justified, though they were not. 
 
 "This is not a case of the defendant acting recklessly," the judge wrote in his ruling. "The testimony establishes that the defendant consciously and deliberately acted." 
 
 Dever added that there was no evidence presented to establish that the "conduct was not legally justifiable," and he said prosecutors did not establish probable cause that Cowley committed a crime. 
 
 The day of the shooting, Cowley and partner Kevin Salmon were undercover and attempting to make contact with Willard, who was sitting in her parked car after she had allegedly purchased drugs. 
 
 Cowley's defense team claimed he fired at Willard because he feared for his life as Willard backed her car, but prosecutors claimed the former detective was never in any danger of being hit by Willard's car. 
 
 Both Cowley and Salmon fired at the woman, but Cowley fired the first and lethal bullet. 
 
 In his ruling, Dever relied heavily on a police consultant retained by prosecutors who testified that Willard was moving her car in reverse toward Cowley, that this constituted obstructing justice or fleeing, and that "potentially, attempted murder was being committed against the defendant." 
 
 The consultant, Salt Lake City Detective Chris Kotrodimos, also testified that Cowley could assume Willard was "trying to kill him" and that "deadly force is an appropriate response to that act," according to Dever. 
 
 Kotrodimos also stated there was probable cause for a felony drug arrest, and that Willard "was not complying [and] ... that she committed more than one felony," according to Dever. 
 
 Dever also cited Rosario Gullermo, an apartment resident who saw portions of the fatal encounter. 
 
 Dever — who is retiring Nov. 1 after 19 years on the bench — focused on Gullermo's initial report to officers, in which she said she saw the car backing out, and then heard shots. On the witness stand, however, Gullermo insisted that it was the other way around: she heard shots and then saw the car moving. 
 
 — ||||| At some point during the confrontation in the horse corral, Worthinton was shot to death. A neighbor said she heard several gunshots. Officers found a "small caliber handgun" near Worthington's body, Winkler said. 
 
 But the shooting wasn't caught on the body camera. The officer who fired on Worthington was wearing a model with "limited battery and memory storage," which officers use sparingly to last their 10-hour shifts, Winkler said. It also doesn't have a pre-record feature, which stores a rolling length of footage — usually 30 seconds — to be saved when the camera is activated. 
 
 "While officers investigated the situation for nearly 45 minutes, the camera was not activated," Winkler said. "This was considered a routine call, where officers would not normally activate a camera system while conducting an area search. The officer encountered the subject and the situation rapidly escalated. The recording device was not activated." 
 
 Winkler said Saturday that rain and snow had slowed the investigation. 
 
 "Because it's an outdoor crime scene where this took place, there's bullet casings and trajectories and things like that that they want to look at," Winkler said. "So trying to do that while the ground is starting to get wet and muddy while snow is falling ... it doesn't make it impossible to do this investigation." 
 
 Winkler said that the homeowner and suspected trespasser knew each other, but couldn't comment further. 
 
 Winkler did not disclose the name of the officer who fired, but described him as a "tenured supervisor." The officer was not injured and is on paid leave until the investigation concludes, Winkler said. 
 
 "We know the public still has questions related ot this incident, and once this investigation is completed the South Jordan Police Department will work with the district attorney's office on the release of information," Winkler said, adding that no further details will be released while the investigation continues. 
 
 Worthington's parents could not be reached for comment; a relative declined to speak immediately on the shooting. 
 
 ealberty@sltrib.com 
 
 Twitter: erinalberty 
 
 mmcfall@sltrib.com 
 
 Twitter: mikeypanda ||||| Through October, 45 people had been killed by law enforcement officers in Utah since 2010, accounting for 15 percent of all homicides during that period. 
 
 A Salt Lake Tribune review of nearly 300 homicides, using media reports, state crime statistics, medical-examiner records and court records, shows that use of force by police is the second-most common circumstance under which Utahns kill each other, surpassed only by intimate partner violence. 
 
 Saturday's shooting, which occurred after an officer responded to a trespassing call, remains under investigation. 
 
 Nearly all of the fatal shootings by police have been deemed by county prosecutors to be justified. Only one — the 2012 shooting of Danielle Willard by West Valley City police — was deemed unjustified, and the subsequent criminal charge was thrown out last month by a judge. 
 
 Does that mean such deaths should be treated as the inevitable cost of keeping police and the public safe? 
 
 "Police are trained and expected to react to deadly threats. As many deadly threats emerge is the exact amount of times police will respond," wrote Ian Adams, a West Jordan police officer and spokesman for the Utah Fraternal Order of Police. "The onus is on the person being arrested to stop trying to assault and kill police officers and the innocent public. … Why do some in society continue to insist the problem lies with police officers?" 
 
 But Robert Wadman, a criminal justice professor at Weber State University and former chief of the Omaha, Neb., police department, said the factors leading up to the decision to shoot a subject are more subtle than what prosecutors consider when reviewing the legal justification. Under Utah law, an officer is justified if at the moment of the shooting the officer reasonably believes deadly force is necessary to prevent death or serious injury. 
 
 "Sometimes the line between is it legal and is it necessary becomes difficult to distinguish," Wadman said. "In the judgment of the officer, 'Is my life in jeopardy? Yes.' At that point in time, they're legally grounded in using deadly force. But the question is, is it necessary? That's something that needs to be firmly addressed, for example, in training." 
 
 — 
 
 'Officers may use any force available' 
 
 The Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) division of the Utah Department of Safety oversees, directly or indirectly, the basic training of all police recruits in Utah. At its four-month academy, cadets are introduced to the use-of-force continuum, a diagram showing officer force options — simply showing up at the scene; verbal commands, touching or holding a subject, pepper spray, police dogs, baton, Taser, or deadly force — arrayed in a circle for the officer's selection. 
 
 "Officers may use any force available provided they can justify the reasonableness of force used," the manual states. 
 
 Adams maintains that officers in Utah typically use less force than may be justified.
– Police watchdogs have their antennae up at the latest report coming out of Utah: A Salt Lake Tribune review that pored over 300 homicides in the state has found that the most killings there over the past five years weren't at the hands of child abusers, drug dealers, or even gang members—they were from law enforcement. The report, which analyzed homicides since 2010, reveals that deadly force by police accounted for the second-highest number of homicides in Utah—45 deaths, or 15% of all homicides—with only domestic violence responsible for more. This review comes on the heels of a South Jordan man being shot to death by police over the weekend in a horse corral, the Tribune reports. This year alone there have been 13 homicides involving cops. Of the deadly encounters between police and citizens over the period of the report, county prosecutors considered only one to be "unjustified"—and manslaughter charges against that detective were dismissed in October, the Tribune notes. While the training manual for Utah recruits states, "Officers may use any force available provided they can justify the reasonableness of force used," the ex-chief of police in Omaha notes the nuances, telling the Tribune, "Sometimes the line between 'is it legal and is it necessary' becomes difficult to distinguish." (Deadly force was used in the weekend shooting of a 12-year-old Cleveland boy.)