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Police in Sandy are still looking for a transient who beat a code enforcement officer. That officer now is out of the hospital and is talking about what happened.
Rob Durfee has head, shoulder and elbow injuries after that attack. He thinks if it wasn't for his cell phone, his injuries could have been worse.
"You're used to, as a code enforcement officer, people yelling at you, but definitely not physically assaulting you," Dufree said.
A routine follow-up inspection on Tuesday at a foreclosed home near 9800 South and 400 East in Sandy ended with Durfee in the hospital. "It was unprovoked, and there was no need for it," he said.
Durfee went to the house yesterday morning to make sure the owner boarded a broken window. A transient was inside the house.
"I told him that I was Sandy City Code Enforcement and that he couldn't be on the property," Dufree explained.
As he called police to escort the man off the property, the man jumped out the window and punched Durfee in the face.
"Once he hit me, and hit me the second time and knocked me down, then it was just complete terror. I wasn't sure what was going to happen," Dufree said.
As Durfee tried to get back to his truck, the man grabbed a 2-by-4 laying on the ground and continued his attack.
"I was screaming at the top of my lungs, 'Help me! Help me!'" Dufree said.
Durfee managed to tell dispatch the address before the man threw his cell phone and ran off. Police are still looking for the man, a transient who Durfee thinks he's seen before walking along State Street.
Durfee hopes job policies will change after this. "I was just doing my job. I wasn't there to cause any problems for him. I was just there to make sure that property was secure," he said.
Durfee says Sandy City is already talking about changing some of its policies to increase safety for its code enforcement officers. Sandy police tell us when a code enforcement officer checks out a vacant home, a police officer will go with them.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
