SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, July 13, 2022 (Gephardt Daily) — Salt Lake City police teamed up with West Valley City officers Wednesday when they tracked and arrested a pair of suspected carjackers and returned the Mercedes they are accused of stealing.
The episode began around 1 p.m. Wednesday when they approached and threatened the Mercedes’ owner at gunpoint as he sat in the vehicle in a parking lot in the 1400 South block of State Street, Salt Lake City Police Lt. Lisa Pascaldo said. They demanded his phone, wallet and keys.
The license plate was quickly entered into police data bases and officers in Salt Lake City and West Valley City were eventually getting hits on the plates in various locations via the system of License Plate Readers, or LPR, network in police cars and fixed camera stations in both cities, Pascaldo explained to Gephardt Daily.
The two suspects, trying to get rid of the Mercedes, possibly attempted another car jacking in the area a few hours after the State Street incident, she said, but that has not been confirmed. The Mercedes was eventually traced via the LPR scanners to an apartment complex in the area of 560 N. Redwood Road by 4 p.m., where the suspects got out and tried to walk away.
But by then a half-dozen or more officers from both Salt Lake and West Valley were able to chase the two down on foot as they ran about the apartment complex. The two males in their 30s were arrested and booked into jail, the lieutenant said, and the Mercedes recovered undamaged and returned to its owner.
At one point the two in the stolen Mercedes had eluded ground pursuit, but another plate scanner hit 20 minutes later put the pair in the officers’ path again, Pascaldo said. “The LPR system worked beautifully.”
