Road-rage shooting ends in rollover crash
Jul 4, 2023, 6:29 AM | Updated: 6:44 am
Two men who allegedly shot at a semitruck driver on Monday ended up crashing into another vehicle while fleeing from police. (Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)
(Spenser Heaps, Deseret News)
MILLCREEK — A suspected road rage incident with shots fired culminated in a violent crash Monday that injured an uninvolved person.
Tyler Joshua Foutz, 24, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of six counts of shooting at a person, aggravated assault, and possession of a weapon by a restricted person.
A semitruck driver told Unified police that he was getting off I-80 at 700 East about 8:20 a.m. when another car “crossed four lanes of traffic and nearly ran him off the road,” a police booking affidavit states. The man honked his horn at the two occupants, one of whom was Foutz, according to police. The two men gave an obscene finger gesture in response, according to the affidavit.
Foutz and the other man, 22, then pulled up alongside the semi driver, yelled a racist comment at him, and “kept telling him to stop and were challenging him to a fight,” the affidavit states.
When the truck driver turned to go east on 3300 South, Foutz’s car followed, police said. The men then got in front of the semi and began “brake checking” the driver, who decided to pull over and stop, according to the affidavit.
But Foutz and the other man also stopped and got out of their car. The truck driver told police he met them outside of his rig and used pepper spray on the two men, the affidavit states. The men then got back in their car and seemingly drove off.
But when the truck driver turned around and got to 4200 South and 700 East, Foutz and the other man pulled up beside the semi and began firing rounds, the affidavit states. No injuries were reported.
After police arrived, took a report from the truck driver and left the scene, the truck driver spotted the vehicle again and got the attention of officers in a nearby parking lot by honking his horn and pointing at the fleeing vehicle, the affidavit states.
An officer attempted to stop the vehicle but the driver refused to pull over. “He said the vehicle at one point was going 100 mph, north on 700 East. (The officer) said the vehicle traveled east on 3300 South at a high rate of speed, running the red light at 1300 East and colliding with another vehicle causing it to roll onto its roof,” according to the affidavit.
One person in the vehicle that was hit was taken to a local hospital. Information on that victim was not immediately available.
As of Monday afternoon, the second person allegedly involved in the road rage had not been booked into the Salt Lake County Jail.
