Rather than helping the student, law enforcement officials Shared Her Nude photographs, overlooked 911 Calls till She was Murdered

An aspiring young collegian in Salt Lake City was murdered in 2018 after a system that ostensibly protects her — chose to ignore her instead. Lauren McCluskey was murdered by a deranged stalker despite multiple calls to 911 to report him. Now, two years later, we revealed that one in all the officers involved in ignoring McCluskey’s pleas for help, kept explicit photos of her on his cellphone and bragged about them to his coworkers and he will face no charges.

Citing the dearth of the statute to charge the officer, Salt Lake County prosecuting attorney Sim Gill said Thursday that his office has declined to prosecute Miguel Deras. While he believes the officer’s actions were “definitely reckless,” Gill said there's no Utah law for addressing this sort of police misconduct, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

“We realized there was no real statute we could use for this case,” Gill said. “We’re incensed like everyone else by the behavior. it absolutely was inappropriate. But if there’s not a statute, there’s nothing we will do.”

But there's not a scarcity of statutes. Conveniently, the DA’s office waited exactly in the future after the state could have filed misdemeanor charges against Deras for abusing evidence. Now, it’s too late because the statute of limitations has expired.

“We just got it so late and were limited in what options we had,” Gill said. But this rings hollow considering the office had months to work out charges.

“Instead of helping her, Deras showed her images to other male officers and bragged about it,” Jill and Matt McCluskey, Lauren’s parents said. “A consequence of Gill’s decision is that ladies will hesitate to report extortion and harassment for fear that the private information they supply is going to be compromised, or perhaps leered at, by officers for reasons unrelated to her case.”

Jill McCluskey even tweeted out the particular crimes committed by Deras.


According to a scathing report within the Salt Lake Tribune in May, when Deras, one of all the officers assigned to McClusky’s case, received the photos, he saved them on his personal phone. And days before McCluskey was killed by the person who was blackmailing her, Deras showed off a minimum of one among the pictures to a male co-worker and bragged about aiming to examine them whenever he wanted, per two fellow officers.

The university has only now confirmed that display occurred — a year and a half after McCluskey first brought her concerns to the department — as a part of a continued push by The Salt Lake Tribune to get public records on how the case was handled. The U. spoke to the officer who was shown the images by Deras and verified the action with him. The Tribune also substantiated it with another officer, who overheard Deras reproval that co-worker.

Neither officer reported the incident at the time, and Deras was never disciplined for it.

In fact, the university says it didn’t fathom the inappropriate behavior and abuse of evidence until after Deras left the department in September 2019, though it occurred before McCluskey’s murder on Oct. 22, 2018. the sole reason officials looked into it, said U. police Lt. Jason Hinojosa, was because The Tribune’s records request first brought it to their attention.

“He was long gone before we had any inkling that that incident with the photo being shown had occurred,” the university said.

Deras left the university local department in September of 2019 and started working for Logan City Police who fired him when the case came to light.

Keeping nude photos on your phone while bragging about them to your coworkers just days before the victim is murdered could be a crime that doesn't should go unpunished. It not only further victimized McCluskey and her family, and showed just how unconcerned the police were together with her case, but it'll undoubtedly cause other victims' fear of coming forward. Deras doesn't must be a cop from now on and desires to be criminally charged.

Jim McConkie, the family’s attorney agrees, saying that McCluskey was harmed while she was alive by the officer choosing to indicate off her photos, and within the time he could are investigating her concerns. And McConkie believes her reputation should be considered a component of her that lives on now.

“What Gill is saying to women with this decision,” McConkie added, “is ‘We can’t facilitate you. Don’t come to us.'”

As reported at the time, McCluskey, 21, met 37-year-old Melvin Rowland in an exceedingly campus bar in September of 2018 and dated him for a few months. McCluskey called off the connection after sorting out that Rowland had lied to her about his age and learning that he had a criminal past.

Rowland was a convicted convict who would persist to obviously violate his terms of release by stalking and even extorting McCluskey but police chose to not act. Instead, they continuously passed the buck.

Again, McCluskey chose to call 911 to succeed in the Salt Lake City department of local government on October 19 after she’d been addressing the University of Utah campus police unsuccessfully for days.

“I’m worried because I’ve been working with the campus police at the U, and last Saturday I reported and that I haven’t gotten an update,” she told Salt Lake City Police dispatch.

“They haven’t updated or done anything,” she added, per the 911 transcripts.

The SLC police would act in a very similar manner to the campus police and that they too did nothing. Instead, they referred her back to the campus police, claiming that this example was under their jurisdiction.

After ending their relationship on October 9, McCluskey tried for a nearly period to induce the police to assist her. She informed both the campus police and therefore the SLC police — on multiple occasions — that she was being harassed by a convicted convict yet as being extorted.

McCluskey told police that Rowland forced her to pay him $1,000 or he would release compromising photos of her. This activity was ignored.

“I’ve contacted them already, I just wanted to speak to you still,” McCluskey said. “Yeah, I used to be just concerned because I wasn’t sure how long they were gonna take.”

Sadly, they'd never act, and on Oct 22, McCluskey was murdered by Rowland. Her multiple 911 calls to police fell on deaf ears and her entirely preventable murder allowed to happen due to incredible police incompetence. Now, it appears it absolutely was not only incompetence but criminal theft of evidence because the officers seemed more concerned with observing her explicit photos than helping her. But nobody is held in control of it.