ANTELOPE ISLAND, Utah, Nov. 8, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — A suspect is in custody and a shooting victim has been hospitalized after what was called in as a road rage incident on the causeway to Antelope Island State Park.
Stephanie Dinsmore, Davis County Sheriff‘s Office spokeswoman, said the call came to dispatch at 1:36 p.m. Wednesday, and DCSO officials arrived about six minutes later to the scene, about 1 to 1.5 miles east of the park’s entry booth, she estimated.
Dinsmore said the shooting victim, a man in his 50s, is in stable condition, and “the suspect fled on foot, and was able to effectively conceal himself in the marshy brush” until he was located by a Department of Public Safety helicopter. The alleged shooter was apprehended and taken into custody.
A Wednesday evening social media post from the Davis County Sheriff’s Office revealed the suspect to be a 16-year-old boy.
The two other people in the suspect’s car remained in the vehicle and cooperated with investigators, Dinsmore said. They were taken to the Sheriff’s Office for questioning. The victim also had two other people in his vehicle. No additional injuries were reported by Dinsmore.
Several other agencies responded to assist with the investigation, she said.
“The causeway was shut down to motorists for several hours, and it was open briefly to allow motorists to leave the island,” she said. “It will be shut down indefinitely until our office is able to finish the investigation out on the causeway.” She added that the park also may remain closed for the next day or two.
Dinmore said she does not know additional details about what led up to the shooting. Any new information will come out in the form of a news release, she said.
Dinsmore said the take-away message is not to participate in exchanges with unknown drivers.
“Don’t engage with other motorists who seem to potentially have behaviors that you don’t know about,” she said. “Keep going, as tough as that might be.
“Again, we don’t know if that is exactly what led to this. And so the message should just be we’re grateful that law enforcement was able to arrive within six minutes, gave life saving aid to this individual, and hopefully this person will now survive.”
