‘I did not fire a single shot’: Utahn cleared in No Kings shooting breaks silence

Arturo Gamboa receives a hug after speaking to reporters in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Annie Knox, Utah News Dispatch)

For almost six months, Arturo Gamboa stayed silent. Now that prosecutors agree he committed no crime in connection with a fatal shooting at Salt Lake City’s No Kings protest in June, he is starting to share his view of what happened that day.

At a news conference Tuesday, Gamboa said he carried a rifle at the protest to peacefully exercise his First and Second Amendment rights and didn’t plan to harm anyone.

“I did not fire a single shot. I did not have any ammunition in the rifle. However, the blame was placed squarely on my shoulders,” Gamboa told reporters in a measured voice, speaking publicly about the shooting and his subsequent arrest for the first time. 

Salt Lake City police arrested him for investigation of murder at the June 14 protest, saying an armed safety volunteer saw Gamboa “manipulate” his rifle and shot at Gamboa, wounding him and accidentally killing innocent bystander Afa Ah Loo in the process. 

Nearly six months after the protest, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill announced last week he would not charge Gamboa with any crime. The same day, Gill filed a charge of manslaughter against the safety volunteer, Matthew Scott Alder, in the death of Ah Loo. 

Gamboa spent six days in jail, his attorney noted Tuesday, but Alder has not spent any time behind bars as authorities say he has cooperated with them. 

His attorney Greg Skordas told reporters his client was a victim. Skordas displayed large pictures at the news conference of two wounds from a bullet entering and exiting Gamboa’s abdomen, saying they illustrate that Gamboa was “bent down when he’s shot. He’s running for his life when he’s shot.” 

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Skordas said he understands why some people were alarmed when they saw Gamboa carrying a gun at the protest in Salt Lake City. 

“But what caused some concern in this case wasn’t Arturo carrying a gun, so much as a large Hispanic man was carrying a gun,” Skordas said. 

Asked if he believes racial bias played a role, Gamboa referenced a history of such bias against people of color in the United States and said, “I have no doubt that played a factor because it has always played a factor.” 

He told reporters he believes “the reality of the situation is that you will see those biases once again in the leniency that is shown to the perpetrator, rather than what was shown to me.”

In response to Gamboa’s comments on racial bias, Gill said in a statement that his office acted based on the evidence and in line with its ethical obligations. His prosecutors got approval from a judge to hold Gamboa in jail for longer than they did, Gill said, but they agreed to his release from jail on June 20 and drafted the court order that allowed him to walk free within a week of his arrest.  

Gill called the case a “perfect storm” created by Utah’s strong self-defense laws and gun laws allowing people to openly carry their weapons in public.   

Gamboa wants to recoup medical debt of more than $10,000 but isn’t suing anyone yet, Skordas said, because he doesn’t want to interfere with Ah Loo’s family recovering any damages they may be entitled to.

Gamboa described being shackled while in jail, wearing handcuffs, a waste chain, leg cuffs, and wearing a chain leash. 

He spoke of “irreparable damage to your psyche, to have never had encounters with police outside of trying to demand justice for oppression and wrongdoings, but to never have been in a jail facility, never been into a prison, to then be chained and bound.” 

He said he wants to see large-scale changes to the prison system and to laws giving police broad immunity from liability, though he didn’t suggest specifics. 

On a personal level, he said, “I think that it’s going to be a lot of healing, a lot of therapy.” Given the international publicity of the case, Gamboa added, “my life is forever changed.”