CENTERVILLE, Utah, July 28, 2021 (Gephardt Daily) — Additional details have been released in the case of a man arrested after what Centerville police describe as a road-rage incident that left a victim critically injured.
Shawn Paul Smith, 44, was arrested Tuesday in the case of the assault, which occurred Monday. Smith has been charged with aggravated assault, a second-degree felony, and failure to remain at an accident involving injury, a third-degree felony.
The incident was captured on surveillance video, the reporting officer says in the affidavit. At about 8:18 p.m. Monday, video shows a gold truck following a small white passenger car into the south parking lot of the Target store.
“Then the driver of the white passenger car exits the vehicle to attempt contact with the driver of the gold Ford F150…While walking in front of the truck, the truck accelerates, hitting the victim and dragging (him) for eight parking stalls before the victim exits under the truck,” the affidavit states. “The truck then leaves through the west exit of the parking lot and leaves the Target parking area at a high rate of speed.”
Witnesses told officers they had seen the two vehicles traveling at a high rate of speed as they turned into the Target parking lot.
“(The witnesses) passed the vehicles and when they looked back they saw the truck running over the victim and speeding away. Video from Target was able to capture a plate off the F-150, and returned to an address in Bountiful.”
Officers made contact with the truck’s driver and his two juvenile passengers, who were still seated in the vehicle, in the area of 100 West and 200 South in Bountiful.
“The driver, Shawn P. Smith, stated that he and the victim had been involved in a road-rage incident at Walmart across the street, and the victim had followed him into the parking lot, pointed a gun at him and his children and attempted to open the doors to the truck, so Shawn left while in fear of the safety of him and his children. Shawn said he did not know he had run over the victim.”
Surveillance video shows it was Smith’s truck that followed the white car from the Walmart lot to the Target lot, the probable cause statement says.
“Shawn’s children said that Shawn was driving fast in the Walmart parking lot, and the white car pulled up next to them and scratched his truck,” the police statement continues. “They said that Shawn got really mad and ran the driver of the white car over.”
The white passenger car was searched for a gun, which Smith told officers had been pulled on him. No gun was found at the scene, and no gun was recorded on surveillance video.
“Shawn’s children made no mention of a gun when they were describing what happened,” the reporting officer wrote. “None of the witnesses mentioned a gun.”
The 20-year-old victim “was transferred to Intermountain Medical Center with significant injuries, including internal bleeding in his pelvic region and a broken pelvis, which cannot be operated on yet because of the internal bleeding,” the statement says.
Smith was booked into the Davis County Jail, and is being held without bail.
