Gabby Petito’s dad fires back at Utah police for 'infuriating' claim defending 2021 traffic stop
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.
Lawyers for Gabby Petito's family are asking a Utah judge to allow their wrongful death lawsuit to continue as her parents rip into the Moab Police Department for minimizing scrutiny over their alleged failures during an August 2021 traffic stop just two weeks before her murder as a money grab.
Lawyers for Moab described the Petito family's $50 million lawsuit as a stand-in "GoFundMe campaign" – prompting public outcry and her parents to condemn the response as tone-deaf.
"Honestly, Moab’s response and attitude is infuriating," her father, Joseph Petito, told Fox News Digital. "The official investigative report concludes the officers made serious mistakes. The Moab officers themselves googled the law, acknowledged they had no discretion, and that failing to follow the statute could cause victims to get killed. It’s all on video and in the transcript. Then they just chose to not obey the statute, and that’s exactly what happened. Gabby was killed. Their inability to take responsibility for their failures is inexcusable. That is why we have to pursue this case."
Fox News Digital was first to report the Moab police encounter after Petito was declared missing in September 2021.
Witnesses called Moab police to report seeing a man hitting a woman in public in the heart of town on Aug. 12, 2021. They provided Petito's license plate, and police found her van near the entrance to Arches National Park.
Bodycam video shows officers questioning Petito, 22, who appears visibly upset and shows evidence of having been abused, and her suspected killer, Brian Laundrie, 23.
"Moab still doesn’t get it," her father said. "This case has never been about money. It has always been about seeking accountability and fighting for change that will save lives. When law enforcement fails to follow the law, fails to protect, and refuses to learn from its mistakes, like the Moab police department, it puts us all at risk."
In the video, Moab Police Officer Eric Pratt reads the Utah statute regarding domestic violence calls out loud.
Read the opposition brief:
"You know why the domestic assault code is there. It's there to protect people," he says. "The reason why they don't give us discretion on these things is because too many times women at risk want to go back to their abuser, they just wanted him to stop, they don't want to have to be separated, they don't want him to be charged, they don't want him to go to jail — and then they end up getting worse and worse treatment and end up getting killed."
His words turned out to be gruesomely prophetic. After the fight, Laundrie flew home to Florida and left Petito in Salt Lake City.
But he returned to Utah and would bludgeon and strangle Petito to death just days later, leaving her body in the wilderness of Wyoming before driving to the other side of the country in her van and using her debit card.
"These words reflect Officer Pratt’s clear understanding of the foreseeability of a victim being killed if police did not follow Utah law," lawyers for Petito's parents wrote in a court filing this week.
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Moab police should have already been following the lethality assessment protocol, or LAP that Petito's family has since successfully lobbied to become mandatory in Utah and Florida. Her parents are pursuing similar laws in other states through the Gabby Petito Foundation.
Moab had ostensibly adopted a LAP known as the Maryland Model, designed to "reduce risks and save lives" voluntarily back in 2018. It involves asking the victim a series of questions in search of specific red flags. A similar protocol is now required under a 2023 law for domestic violence calls across Utah.
"The Petito family’s civil claims are not about money," said Brian Stewart, an attorney for Petito's family. "Damages awards are the only remedy available in our civil justice system and may be the only language that motivates an institution like the Moab Police Department to change."
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Read Moab's motion to dismiss:
However, despite an existing state law that required officers to arrest or cite either Petito or Laundrie after the stop, Pratt and his trainee partner, Officer Daniel Robbins, officially deemed the encounter a "mental health break" rather than a domestic violence incident.
They split the couple up for the night instead, placing Laundrie in a motel and leaving Petito alone to sleep in the van.
"As evidenced by their response, Moab doesn’t understand the heavy cost imposed on the Petito family and others when they choose not to follow the law and do their job properly," Stewart added. "Seeking change and accountability requires that they bear a part of that burden by making such failures more costly for them going forward."
Parker and McConkie, the legal team pursuing a $50 million judgment against Moab, announced this week that the Petito family is now also represented by former Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham, who spent decades on the bench and who Stewart described as one of the most prominent legal minds in the country.
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Lawyers for Moab asked the judge to throw out the case in April, arguing that police were protected by a government immunity law.
"Petito’s murder is an undeniable sorrow. Laundrie’s crime was undisputedly depraved, but the judicial system is not a substitute for a GoFundMe campaign," they wrote. "Heartbreak is not enough."
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Stewart's team filed an opposition brief this week countering that wrongful death claims against the government are protected under the Utah Constitution – noting that the state's Mormon founders faced government-backed persecution when they settled in the region.
"Gabby’s tragic murder at the hands of her fiancé was preventable," they wrote. "Moab and its officers simply needed to follow Utah law and Moab’s domestic violence protocol — the LAP. This they did not do."
On Sept. 19, 2021, an FBI-led search recovered Petito's remains at a campsite near where she was last seen in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest.
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Laundrie drove her van to his parents' house in North Port, Florida, went camping with his family and then fled as police sought to question him.
He killed himself in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park up the road, but it took five weeks for authorities to find his remains after a rain storm buried the swamp in floodwater.
After the water receded, his parents, the FBI and local police returned to search the park on Oct. 20, 2021.
In the grass near his skeletal remains, his father Christopher Laundrie stumbled upon a waterproof bag that contained a handwritten confession.
"I ended her life," the killer wrote. "I thought it was merciful, that it is what she wanted, but I see now all the mistakes I made. I panicked. I was in shock."
The Petito family also sued Laundrie's estate over her death. They settled a separate lawsuit against his parents and their attorney, Steve Bertolino.
"Given the break in time and the act committed by Brian weeks later, I don’t see how you can hold the officers liable," he said Friday.
If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.