Car of teens chased down 15-year-old driver before fatal shooting in West Valley City; police ID victim

West Valley City police responded to the scene of a fatal shooting Thursday night. Photo: Gephardt Daily/Monico Garza/SLCScanner

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah, Jan. 19, 2018 (Gephardt Daily) — New details have been released after the fatal shooting of a teenager driver and a dog by an acquaintance traveling in another vehicle.

The 15-year-old boy shot to death has been identified as Irving Alexis Chuba.

West Valley City police responded to the scene at 9:45 p.m. Thursday, according to a statement released by the department. They found Chuba deceased.

The boy had been traveling in a van with several friends in their mid-teens when he was confronted by teens in a passenger car, the statement says. The vehicles were in the area of 3500 S. Bangerter Highway.

Chuba reportedly told his passengers he knew one or more of the people in the car, and he began making frantic traffic maneuvers to try to lose the car in traffic.

The car pursued the van at a high rate of speed, running red lights and weaving through traffic, the WVCPD statement says.

When Chuba was forced to slow down by traffic at 4100 S. Bangerter Highway, the pursuing driver pulled up next to his van, and someone in the car fired multiple shots at close range.

Chuba was struck, and his van turned west, into an eastbound lane of 4100 South, colliding with a third vehicle. No one was seriously injured in that accident.

In the van, a small dog, believed to be a chihuahua, was also struck by a bullet and died.

Police are searching for the shooter’s car, believed to be a silver or gold Mitsubishi, or a similar-looking make. Witnesses said there were three or four occupants in the car, and they were in their mid to late teens.

Anyone who was in the area and may have seen the vehicles driving recklessly, or who knows anything else about the crime, is asked to call the West Valley City Police Department at 801-840-4000.

1 COMMENT

  1. What the hell is wrong with our world? Where are the parents? What in the world is a car full of young people doing chasing down a 15yr old boy anyway? God help us.

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