LDS Church members' Run-In With Deputies Capped a Sad Week
Salt Lake Tribune 21Nov99 P2
By Greg Burton: Salt Lake Tribune

OGDEN, UTAH -- On Oct. 16, Glenn Lutz allegedly resisted arrest during an otherwise routine traffic stop. Three deputies eventually subdued and hogtied him, but Lutz stopped breathing and slipped into a coma. He died a month later. When asked why he would resist, Laurie Lutz allegedly told investigators that her husband hated cops and "he probably wanted you to shoot him."

Seemingly haunted by the deaths of his grandfather, his sister who died 16 years ago while on a Mormon Church mission, and his father three years ago, Lutz, a 41-year-old father with two boys of his own, seemed to slip into an emotional funk that he could not seem to shake.

Laurie Chaplin, Lutz's sister, believes her brother never really got over their father's death, but she doesn't buy the idea he was to blame for his own tragic end. The more recent tragedy seemed to start when Lutz's wife of 25 years told him she wanted a divorce, a sheriff's report indicates. On Oct. 5, a nurse at McKay-Dee Hospital reported Lutz had called and threatened to kill his wife. Lutz denied the report, and was not charged. Instead, a sheriff's deputy gave the couple a packet on avoiding or resolving domestic disputes. Weber County officials also say Lutz went to his wife's employer and caused a disturbance. The wife's employer has not commented on the alleged disturbance. The Lutz family attorney, Loni DeLand, who is advising Laurie Chaplin on a potential wrongful-death lawsuit against Weber County, says recent reports about Lutz and his wife are little more than character smears lodged by a sheriff's office fearful of criticism. Lutz was not an angel, Chaplin said-- he would fight if provoked. But after listening to a recording of the deputies screaming profanities as they hogtied him, she says she can guess why her brother resisted. "When they pulled him over and he wasn't doing anything wrong, if they started swearing at him like they did on the video, that would have set him off," she says. "When he got angry, he had a pretty good reason."