Tragedy tests new Ogden mayor on his first first full day in office

OGDEN — Mike Caldwell had gone home Wednesday evening, having completed his first full day as mayor of Ogden.

He was reading a bedtime story to his 9-year-old daughter just before 9 p.m. when the phone rang in the other room. He let it ring.

"I figured I'd just finish the story with my daughter," Caldwell recalled, "but it rang again immediately."

The call was from one of his assistants in the mayor's office. And the news wasn't good.

"She said, 'Mike, there's been an officer-involved shooting. We're still in the thick of it, and we don't know what's happened. We've heard there are multiple injuries,'" the mayor recounted.

Caldwell tucked in his daughter, told her the rest of the story would have to wait and headed out "to be where I needed to be."

Just minutes earlier, six officers from the Weber-Morgan Metro Narcotics Strike Force had been shot while attempting to serve a warrant at 3268 Jackson Ave. A gun battle broke out, and one of Ogden's own, officer Jared Francom, was fatally wounded.

Caldwell spent the rest of the night traveling between hospitals, police stations and city offices.

"It's been the most gut-wrenching, difficult thing I've ever done," he said.

The first stop was Ogden Regional Medical Center, where Francom had been taken.

"We knew he was the most seriously injured," Caldwell said.

The mayor said he wanted to show his support for the officers and their families, but he didn't want to intrude. Most of them didn't know him, he said.

"But I wanted to be there to tell every one of those guys, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate you, and we're going to do everything we can to take care of you,'" he said.

Caldwell estimates there were between 80 and 100 officers from jurisdictions throughout northern Utah at Ogden Region Medical Center in support of their fallen colleague Wednesday night.

"It's amazing the amount of support that comes out of a community when something like this happens," the mayor said.

Caldwell also spent some time at McKay-Dee Hospital Center, where Ogden police officers Shawn Grogan, Kasey Burrell and Michael Rounkles were taken in critical condition.