Alison Young

USA TODAY

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski on Sunday asked police to release "as much information to the public as possible" on the Saturday night shooting of a teenager by police.

"The use of force by law enforcement against the public can tear at the delicate balance of trust between both sides, and must be taken extremely seriously," Biskupski said in a statement released late Sunday.

The shooting prompted a night of anger and rock-throwing. Witnesses at the shooting scene, near a downtown homeless shelter, said police shot and wounded a teenager who is from Kenya. Selam Mohammad, 19, said an officer shot his friend four times, local media reported. Local TV stations identified the victim as Abdi Mohamed, 17.

In a statement released Sunday, Salt Lake City Police said two officers were involved in the shooting and were wearing active body cameras. The footage was turned over to investigators. The officers were placed on "routine administrative leave" pending the result of the investigation.

The victim was in surgery and in critical condition as of Sunday, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

After the shooting, people in the area began throwing rocks at police officers. “A lot of people are yelling, ‘they shot an innocent kid,'” a KSL-TV reporter tweeted. Nearly 100 officers, including some from other law enforcement agencies and some carrying riot shields, responded to the area, KSL reported.

According to both police and witnesses, the shooting was preceded by some sort of altercation among a group of people. Officers in the area on an unrelated call were alerted to an "assault in progress," then "tried to engage (the) altercation," according to a statement the department issued on Twitter.

Mohammad told The Salt Lake Tribune that the shooting victim and a man were in a confrontation, and the victim was holding part of a broomstick at his side when officers ran up.

"They told him to put it down, once," Mohammad said, and "started shooting him as soon as he turned around." Mohammad said the police fired four times and that the teenager was hit in the chest and stomach.

"He barely even turned around, then boom, boom, boom — and he just dropped," Deseret News reported.

In its statement released Sunday, Salt Lake City Police said officers "witnessed two males with metal objects attacking a male victim." They confronted the pair and ordered them to drop the weapons. "One of the males complied and dropped the weapon, the other continued to advance on the victim and was shot by officers."

Four others were arrested during the confrontation that followed the shooting, police said.

In her statement, Biskupski said that while the shooting was still under investigation, "there is no doubt what happened is a tragedy for all involved and for our entire city."

She asked police to release as much information as possible without compromising the integrity of the investigation. Biskupski also asked Police Chief Mike Brown "to reach out to members of the young man’s family, as well as meet personally with members of the police reform community as soon as possible."

Saturday's shooting was the third "significant use of force incident" for city police in the last month, Biskupski said. "This morning, I had a serious conversation with Police Chief Brown and members of his team to review details about each of these incidents, including a discussion on training and whether de-escalation efforts could have been implemented."

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On its Facebook page, the activist group Utah Against Police Brutality said it planned to hold an "emergency rally" at a federal building on Monday evening. "Tomorrow, Salt Lake City cannot ignore what happened this weekend," the post said.

The group added, "We need a radical change in police-community relations. We are not talking about 'community policing' where the community merely becomes an extension of police power. We are talking about subordinating the police to the will of the people. The community needs to reassert its power over the police!"

The group also wants Biskupski to create a civilian board to review police conduct.

Contributing: Greg Toppo, USA TODAY