SALT LAKE CITY — As Ron Stallworth tells it, gang members thought Utah police were a joke.
“One kid,” Stallworth recalled in an interview with FOX 13 News, “even said, ‘Coming to Utah and dealing with you guys is like going to Disneyland,’ which really pissed me off.
“I probably violated his rights a little bit when I grabbed him by the neck, pushed him against the wall and told him to never talk to me or any other Utah cop in that manner.”
To Stallworth, the badge was a tool to make a difference. Stallworth’s difference was… different.
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His infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs, Colorado, became a book that Spike Lee turned into the film “BlacKKKlansman,” a somewhat-fictionalized account of the Black cop Stallworth fooling America’s foremost bigots.
Stallworth’s new book, “The Gangs of Zion: A Black Cop’s Crusade in Mormon Country,” picks up a few years later, mid-1980s Salt Lake City. It reads like a Western as much as a memoir. In so many words, Stallworth is the confident stranger who arrives to clean up the town, if not the whole state.
GANGSTERS: UTAH STYLE
The Utah Department of Public Safety hired him to be a narcotics officer. After seeing Utah had burgeoning gangs, which Stallworth credits himself as recognizing before others, Stallworth ditched the undercover work for on-the-streets regulating.
“I knew I was right,” Stallworth said of the self-confidence that runs through the book. “I knew I could back up the things that I was saying.
“I never said anything that I wasn’t prepared to get on the witness stand, put my hand on the Bible and say, ‘I do’ to the judge.”
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Stallworth writes in the book about seeing Bloods and Crips from Los Angeles arriving in Utah. They created new crack markets.
A report Stallworth sent his superiors circa 1987 recommended that the state start an anti-gangs task force. That task force exists to this day. Stallworth was assigned to it.
Stallworth soon noticed a made-in-Utah shift — young white men claiming to be Bloods and Crips.
“And my partner, who is a devout Mormon,” Stallworth told FOX 13, “cracked up when he heard it, and I was cracking up with him because we had never heard of white Bloods and Crips.”
“They also say they’re Mormons.”
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That partner was Salt Lake City police officer Kevin Crane. He died in 2016. Stallworth dedicates “Gangs of Zion” to him and compliments Crane throughout.
In video below, Stallworth talks about his partner on the gang task force, Salt Lake City’s Kevin Crane.
Stallworth talks about Crane
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But in a Western, for every great partner, there’s a crop of locals who are more hinderance than asset. That’s how a lot of Utahns come off in “Gangs of Zion.”
CHECK YO SELF
Stallworth writes about a visit to Price where he found gang graffiti all over town, including near the rear door of the police headquarters where the chief entered every day.
That chief, Aleck Shilaos, spoke to FOX 13 News by phone. Shilaos contends that no one, including Stallworth, actually found gang members in Price. And that’s a point of pride for the long-retired chief.
Price had gang prevention efforts in place, Shilaos said, that included communication with the school district and speaking with parents every time a kid was caught drawing a gang sign on a wall.
“And it worked,” Shilaos said. “But we did have wannabes — don’t get me wrong — at the junior high level.”
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To Stallworth, Price was an example of what he saw across Utah. Leaders were applying for grants targeting gangs while also telling the public they didn’t have a gang problem.
“They kept falling back on the old dodge,” Stallworth said. “‘This is Utah. Utah is white. Utah is conservative. Utah is primarily Mormon.’”
Speaking of that last point, Stallworth describes one co-worker’s effort to convert him to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Stallworth responded with some pointed questions centered on race.
Let’s just say there was no further attempt by that co-worker to add Stallworth’s name to the membership rolls.
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“Gangs of Zion” also touches on Stallworth becoming an authority on rap lyrics, complete with testimony before Congress. There’s a cameo by Ice Cube during a concert stop in Utah.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The memoir does not have a storybook ending.
Stallworth was removed from the gang task force in 2000 over what he describes as bias. It wasn’t the racial kind.
Stallworth contends that his superiors at the Utah Department of Public Safety favored cops who came up through the state trooper ranks. Stallworth was re-assigned to the state’s concealed firearm permit program.
Below, Stallworth discusses his final five years — or was it four? — as a police officer in Utah.
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Final years with DPS
Meanwhile, Stallworth and his wife, Micki, were raising their two children in Davis County. Micki Stallworth, who met her husband in Colorado Springs, died of cancer in 2004. Stallworth describes an episode at work in the midst of grieving that aggravated his anguish.
His 19th and final year at the department — there was supposed to be a 20th — concluded not so much in a ride into the sunset as a hop onto a stagecoach that was going anywhere but where he was. While he still has family in Utah, Stallworth has remarried and moved to El Paso, Texas, where he grew up.
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Now age 71, Stallworth isn’t on any book tours.
“I’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” he told FOX 13 News. “I’ve had surgery. It’s stage one.”
“The bottom line is,” Stallworth added, “there are too many people in the world left for me to piss off, and I’m going to write another book and address it all.
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A wrongful death lawsuit filed in Utah alleges a counterfeit airbag turned a routine crash into a fatal explosion that killed a teenage driver within minutes.
Alexia De La Rosa graduated from Hunter High School in May of 2025. On July 30, 2025, she was involved in a crash.
The lawsuit alleges that when the vehicle’s driver-side airbag deployed, it detonated and sent metal and plastic shrapnel into the cabin.
MORE | Crashes
A large, jagged piece of metal struck Alexia in the chest, and she died minutes later, according to the complaint.
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The lawsuit, filed by Morgan & Morgan in Utah’s Third Judicial District Court, was brought on behalf of Tessie De La Rosa, as personal representative of the estate of her 17-year-old daughter.
The defendants are AutoSavvy Holdings Inc., AutoSavvy Dealerships LLC, and AutoSavvy Management Company LLC.
Morgan & Morgan alleges that the Hyundai Sonata had previously been declared a total loss after a 2023 crash and issued a salvage title. The suit claims AutoSavvy later purchased the vehicle and had it repaired — during which counterfeit, non-compliant, and defective airbag components were allegedly installed — before reselling it to the De La Rosa family.
The complaint further alleges that AutoSavvy knew or should have known the vehicle contained counterfeit and nonfunctional airbag components when it was sold.
“This is the third wrongful death lawsuit we have filed involving alleged counterfeit airbags that we believe turned survivable crashes into fatal incidents,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan said in a statement. “No life should be cut short because a corporation puts profits above safety.”
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Attorney Andrew Parker Felix, who is leading the case, said the firm is committed to uncovering how allegedly illegal airbag inflators enter the stream of commerce and are installed in vehicles sold to consumers.
“To make this perfectly clear, these are not supposed to be in the United States at all,” Felix said. “They are not approved for use in any vehicle that’s being driven in the United States.”
“They don’t have approval from any governmental agency to be installed in vehicles that are driven within the United States and regulated here,” he added.
Morgan & Morgan says it is investigating at least three additional deaths involving other defendants and alleged counterfeit airbags.
KUTV 2News reached out to AutoSavvy multiple times by email and phone. We were told a member of the company’s legal team would be in touch, but as of publication we have not received a response.
Randall will be among several key visitors in attendance for a meeting on March 6
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus during an event on Feb. 7.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump this week.
Randall is expected to be among several attendees at a White House roundtable meeting on Friday to discuss solutions for the rapidly evolving landscape of college athletics with the president, a U. spokesperson said.
The meeting could be postponed, however, due to the war in Iran. As of Monday, “the odds of it happening this week are 50-50 at best,” according to Yahoo Sports.
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If the roundtable happens as scheduled, the guest list includes several current and former notable figures in sports, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, golf legend Tiger Woods and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed in a social media post on X that he would be in attendance as well.
“Thank you [President Donald Trump] for inviting me to participate, and for your commitment to addressing challenges in college sports,” Cox said on X. “[Taylor Randall] is a great university leader who will work with us on solutions for this critical issue.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) University of Utah President Taylor Randall speaks on campus on Feb. 7.
Earlier this year, Randall was called on by the federal House Committee on Education and Workforce to schedule a briefing to discuss the school’s planned private-equity partnership with Otro Capital, according to a report from Sportico.
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The Utes announced their proposal in December of last year, which is a first-of-its-kind agreement between a university’s athletic department and a private equity company.
Utah’s deal with Otro has yet to be finalized. In a Feb. 10 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune, Randall said the university is “still just working through all of the issues systematically.”
“We want to do this in the right way to set both of us up for future success,” he added.
The move is expected to infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.’s athletic department to help sustain the financial future of the program with rising deficits across the industry.
“I don’t think any of us would prefer to be in this situation right now,” Randall said in a faculty senate meeting in January. “But it just is what we’re facing.”
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SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The 2025-2026 winter season isn’t quite over, but it’s no secret that it’s been a rough one when it comes to snow. Right now, statewide snowpack numbers are hovering around 60% of the median.
But you don’t have to know those numbers to understand what a strange winter it’s been.
“It’s kind of good,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives in Salt Lake City. “I mean, I like it because I like a milder climate. But I realize this summer is going to be hard.”
MORE | Snowpack
“I’m not sad I’m not shoveling,” said Sally Humphreys of Salt Lake City. “But it’s definitely worrying.”
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State water officials are also worried. The clock is ticking to bulk up those snowpack numbers.
“We’re running out of time to get the snowpack that we need,” said Jordan Clayton, supervisor of the Utah Snow Survey. “We have about 40 or so days until our typical snowpack peak.”
There is still some time to make up lost ground, but the odds aren’t great. Clayton estimates a 10% chance of reaching normal by the end of the season.
“Those are terrible odds,” he said.
In fact, the odds of having a record low snowpack are greater, sitting at 20%. It’s a grim reality that has officials looking toward the summer anxiously.
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“I would expect to see watering restrictions outdoors for a lot of places,” said Laura Haskell, Utah’s drought coordinator.
It’s unknown what the next few weeks will bring, but if Haskell had to guess, she doesn’t see state reservoirs filling up much from where they are now.
“In the spring when that runoff hits, we do get a noticeable peak in our reservoir storage,” Haskell said. “The water just starts coming in. But this year, we don’t anticipate getting that.”
Haskell says we have enough reservoir storage to likely make it through the summer, but there are other implications to worry about.
Our autumn season was pretty wet. That led to decent soil moisture levels, which can then lead to higher vegetation growth.
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“If we then have a snowpack that melts out really early, we’ll have a longer than normal summer, if you will, with forage growth that might dry out, and so that’s kind of a bad recipe for promoting fire hazard,” Clayton said.
Utahns have dealt with low snowpack levels in the past. Many Utahns are familiar with their lawn turning brown because of water restrictions.
“We’ll probably just let it go that nice, sandy, golden color that it gets in the summer in a dry climate,” said Dea Ann Kate, who lives in Cottonwood Heights.
As we wait to see what the next few weeks bring, people like Carrie Stewart are just reflecting on an unusual winter.
“It is worrying,” she said. “We need snow. We’ve only shoveled once this season, and that’s very unusual.”
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Water officials are now hoping for something else unusual: climbing out of the snowpack hole that’s been created.
“But there are no times going back where the snowpack totals for the state were close to where they are right now, and we ended up actually at a normal peak,” Clayton said. “So while it’s possible, it’s very unlikely.”
