Changes at Liberty Park urged

Salt Lake City needs better activities at Liberty Park, a city councilwoman said after Sunday's deadly stabbing at Utah's largest municipal park.

The city has dumped millions of taxpayer dollars into Liberty Park improvements in the past five years — all of which could be wasted if people are afraid to go there, Councilwoman Jill Remington Love said.

With the taxpayers' investment in mind, Love said the time has come for the city to begin holding more events and activities in the park, especially on Sunday afternoons when the drum circle convenes.

"We need to work on having counter-programming on the weekends so it's not just the drum circle that's drawing people on the weekends," Love said.

Participants in the drum circle who have talked to the Deseret Morning News say the sale and use of illegal drugs like marijuana, LSD and heroin are commonplace among those in the circle.

Police have not said what led to the slaying of Joshua Jacobson in Liberty Park late Sunday afternoon.

Jacobson, a drum-circle participant, was seen arguing with some men and then running away from them and falling on the ground with a stab wound.

He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Police were still looking late Monday for the man they say stabbed Jacobson. He is described as in his early 20s wearing a gray sweatshirt and carrying an orange backpack.

Investigators don't believe the stabbing was random, said Salt Lake City police detective Dwayne Baird.

The department had planned to increase its presence in the park near the third week of April, which usually signifies warm weather and increased park activity. Now they will increase their presence in the park beginning next week.

Love said she began talking with Liberty Park concessionaires about alternative activities in the park after a man was shot to death late last year near the drum circle.

Mayor Rocky Anderson criticized a 1999 police crackdown on the drum circle, but in 2001 Anderson and Police Chief Rick Dinse publicly stated that they wanted officers to enforce drug laws and police the drum circle.

Anderson's appearance came after a KSL-TV report in which some officers said they were under the impression they shouldn't be policing the drum circle. Former Liberty-Wells Community Council Chair Orson West contends police officers are still operating under that impression.

"It's a lawless environment, and the participants are becoming more bold because they know the cops won't do anything," West said.

But Baird said officers do enforce at the park and don't think Anderson wants them to back off.

"I think (the mayor) is supportive of enforcement over there," Baird said.

Anderson's spokeswoman Deeda Seed said the Mayor's Office has no official policy on how the police should handle the drum circle and is withholding judgment on Sunday's stabbing until more facts are known.

"The perception is that this was an isolated incident," she said.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com