John Santy had planned for a quiet Thursday evening in his Snyderville Basin condo when, shortly after 5 p.m., he heard a loud bang followed by his roommate screaming in the kitchen.
“I quickly stood up and all of a sudden there’s this dude in my living room running back and forth through my kitchen opening doors, bleeding, and I’m like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’” Santy said. “He wouldn’t listen to me, so I grabbed my gun (that) I had hidden, and I cocked it and told him to get … on the ground or I would shoot him. He put his hands up, I got him proned out, then I told (my roommate) to call 911 and just said, ‘If you move, I will shoot you.’”
While his roommate was on the phone, Santy heard knocks on his front door. He didn’t know it at the time, but it was the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies were dispatched to Canyon Creek Apartments following an earlier 911 call about a 35-year-old man behaving violently and threatening people with a pair of scissors, according to Sgt. Skyler Talbot. The suspect fled when deputies arrived and attempted to enter multiple apartments before jumping onto a balcony and accessing Santy’s unit through an unlocked door.
Santy said he wasn’t sure whether the man he held at gunpoint in his home was associated with the people pounding on his door. But he decided to trust that the voices on the other side of the door were from the authorities.
“So I said to him, ‘Don’t you move or you’ll get shot,’ and I slowly walked away toward the door, and they came in,” Santy recalled. “And because I had my gun in my hand, they were freaking out, and I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m the homeowner.’ They’re like, ‘Drop it, drop it.’ I was like, ‘Okay,’ and I put it down, and they pushed me out of the room. I was like, ‘He’s in the kitchen,’ and they ran around, and then they arrested him.”
Talbot said deputies shot the man three times with beanbag rounds before he entered a third-floor apartment, then leapt from that balcony onto Santy’s below.
“He monkey-jumped or swung,” Santy said. “It’s like 10 feet onto my balcony. He broke my outdoor table when he fell. We had our door cracked open to get some fresh air. When you’re on the second floor, you think you don’t have to worry, but he busted through the screen and came in, and that’s when I heard (my roommate) screaming.”
After the sheriff’s deputies arrested the man, Santy sanitized his place while his roommate called out of work for the evening to allow herself to recover emotionally.
“I had to clean up the blood off the floor,” Santy said. “I was an EMT, so it’s normal to me, but still, when it’s in your place with somebody else’s. I put gloves on and (cleaned) it, and it went away.”
Santy is a 41-year-old lifetime Park City resident who has lived in his Canyon Creek condo for the past two years. He has certifications and a concealed weapons permit for his firearms but had never found himself in a position that prompted him to pull a gun until Thursday.
“I didn’t want to shoot him, but I was ready to,” Santy said. “I’ve had lots of training. My dad taught me when I was 12 years old. I train all the time with my firearms and definitely always keep it safe, which is very important.”
Santy’s father, Jim Santy Jr., was a Park City fire captain.
After the incident, neighbors spoke about the noises that brought them out to investigate as they pieced together the situation.
“All my neighbors are calling me the hero of the neighborhood,” Santy said. “I’m just glad I was able to stop him because I don’t put up with stuff like that. It’s ridiculous. I’ll protect my community at all costs, and I’ll protect my house.”
Santy was able to review his actions thanks to a home security video system.
“The only reason I have it is to keep an eye on the pets when I’m gone,” Santy said. “I’m glad it kicked in during this situation because I never planned on anything like this.”
The suspect was taken to a hospital and treated for injuries related to the incident, then booked in the Summit County Jail, where he is being held without bail. No formal charges have been filed against the suspect as of Monday.