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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Deng Auling, 29, was charged in the suspected murder of Dominik Philip in Millcreek.
- Initially reported as self-inflicted, detectives found inconsistencies suggesting otherwise, leading to Auling’s arrest.
- Surveillance audio allegedly captured Auling saying, “We were playing around … he dead bruh.”
MILLCREEK — The shooting death of a man inside an apartment that was originally reported as being self-inflicted has now resulted in charges.
Deng Auling, 29, was charged Friday with murder, a first-degree felony, obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony, and tampering with a witness, a third-degree felony, after being booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on March 10 for investigation of murder.
Unified police were called just after 5 p.m. Sunday to the Revolve Apartments, 764 W. 3940 South in Millcreek, where they found 29-year-old Dominik Philip dead from a single gunshot wound.
“Paramedics on scene said they observed a single wound to the back of the decedent’s left shoulder,” according to a police booking affidavit.
The person who called 911 said the victim had “shot himself.” But detectives concluded that “due to the angle of the gunshot wound and the area where the bullet entered the victim’s body, it is not believed the victim was able to shoot himself,” the affidavit states.
One person at the apartment told police that Philip and his cousin “were playing with the gun and it went off.” But the witness would not identify the cousin, telling investigators, “I don’t want to incriminate him,” according to the affidavit.
Seven people from the apartment were taken to the Unified Police Department’s Midvale precinct to be questioned. Witnesses said they were either asleep or on couches in the living room.
“The victim was on the bigger couch along the wall, and (Auling) was on the gaming chair by the television,” the affidavit says.
After the shot rang out, one witness said Philip looked at her, and she “saw his eyes get wide, heard the victim say her name and then fall back into the couch,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators searching the apartment reported finding a 9mm gun in the bathroom that was wet, as though someone had tried to wash it.
Surveillance video recovered by detectives from inside the apartment “captured audio after the shooting. A voice is heard stating, ‘We were playing around, and it went off … he dead bruh.’ Multiple people inside of the apartment were permitted to listen to the audio recording, the voice was identified by them as (Auling’s) voice,” according to the affidavit.
Auling was taken into custody March 10. When asked whether detectives believe the shooting was accidental, Unified police on Tuesday said they found too many inconsistencies between witness statements and evidence collected at the crime scene which led to the arrest. The investigation into the case is ongoing, police said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.