SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah, Oct. 14, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — Officials are looking for answers and possibly suspects after a car crashed into an apartment complex in South Salt Lake in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Lt. Manfred Lassig with Unified Police Department told Gephardt Daily the incident happened at the Mountain Shadows Apartments at 3825 S. 700 West at approximately 1 a.m.
Officials had reports of numerous vehicles that may have been street racing on State Street in South Salt Lake, officials said. More vehicles were then seen possibly racing on 3900 South, and an officer in the area saw them.
“One of my officers was west of 700 West and saw a couple of cars fly by at a high rate of speed, he turned on them, I think they were trying to avoid him,” he said.
One vehicle was travelling eastbound on 3900 South and was attempting to turn left to go northbound on 700 West, Lassig said, but was allegedly going too fast to complete the turn.
The vehicle went over the sidewalk, hit a power pole guy wire, continued through a flower bed, crashed into the apartment sign and at least one tree, then impacted the side of the apartment building, damaging the bathroom of the basement apartment.
“Basically, we’ve got a car who made a turn to go northbound on 700 West, didn’t make the turn and found the building,” Lassig said.
He added that the location where the car came to rest has the power banks to all the apartments on the left, and to the right, the natural gas meters.
“We got real lucky tonight, because he missed the natural gas meters by six inches to a foot,” Lassig said. “That would have been a mess then.”
A 17-year-old, who is the son of the owner of the car, stayed on scene. He told police he was in the passenger seat, and the other three individuals in the car ran on foot, but Lassig said officials have no way of verifying if there were other people in the car.
No description has been given of the three people that are alleged to have run from the car.
The juvenile was not injured, Lassig said. It’s not clear at this point what charges he may be facing.
Gephardt Daily will have more on this developing story as information is made available.
