Police: One man in hospital, another on the run after Taylorsville road rage face-off

Unified Police said a road rage incident Friday evening, June 2, in Taylorsville, escalated until a tire iron and a pipe wrench were involved, and a man was deliberately hit by a vehicle. Photo: Gephardt Daily/SLCScanner

TAYLORSVILLE, Utah, June 2, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — Police said a road rage incident Friday evening escalated until weapons were involved and a man was deliberately hit by a vehicle.

Unified Police Lt. Bill Robertson said several calls were received indicating that a road rage situation had started to the south of Kearns Junior High School on 4000 West.

When the vehicles reached the light at the intersection of 4700 South and 4000 West, Robertson said, two individuals got out of their respective vehicles and confronted each other.

“That escalated to a tire iron and another weapon being drawn,” Robertson said. “In the midst of all this, we had a retired West Jordan lieutenant who was on scene, viewed (the confrontation) and jumped out with his I.D. and a gun. So we were getting complaints about a man with a gun.”

Robertson said police weren’t sure what to expect and expedited their response. Describing the incident he said, “Bottom line, it turned out we had a road rage situation where these two individuals got into a confrontation in the intersection. The driver of the truck was getting back in his vehicle, and the guy in the car got behind him and took off, and ran into the driver of the truck.”

Robertson said the driver of the truck was seriously injured and probably had a broken leg. He was transported by ambulance to Intermountain Medical Center.

The car that hit him, Robertson said, also damaged the front door of the truck, and took off northbound into West Valley City.

Police are now looking for a gray Hyundai Sonata with significant front-end damage on the passenger side. Robertson said they don’t have a license plate number, but there were plenty of witnesses and some evidence was left at the scene that police may be able to trace back to the Hyundai.

Robertson said neither of the drivers involved in the road rage had a gun. Witnesses reported that one had a tire iron and the other had a pipe wrench.

“It goes from people throwing water bottles (to this). That’s how this started,” he said.

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