MILLCREEK, Utah, Oct. 16, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — An 18-year-old man who goes by the moniker ‘Menace’ has been arrested in connection with the shooting of a 19-year-old man in Millcreek Thursday.
Officials tweeted Friday that they had a juvenile in custody, and that the other suspect was still at large.
The second suspect, Darrious Amour Lee Houston aka ‘Menace,’ of Taylorsville, was arrested late Friday night. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of one count of first-degree felony attempted murder and two counts of third-degree felony discharge of a firearm.
Initially, police thought the shooting may have been gang-related. Both suspects are known gang members, the Unified Police Department stated, but investigators have since confirmed that the victim has no gang affiliation.
The victim has been upgraded from critical to fair condition.
On Thursday, Unified Police Detective Chuck Malm told Gephardt Daily that at about 5:30 p.m., police received a call of shots fired near 4000 South and 500 East.
When officers arrived, they found spent shell casings in the road, but no victim on scene.
Malm said that a short while later “we received a call from one of our officers at a local hospital that a victim with a gunshot wound arrived at the hospital.”
A probable cause statement from the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the victim had a gunshot wound to the chest. Police were told by hospital staff the bullet missed the victim’s heart by approximately two centimeters, “nearly killing him.”
Early in the investigation, as police were trying to piece things together as to what had happened, the incident had the appearance of a gang-related shooting, Malm said.
“A vehicle pulled up to the victim, a verbal confrontation occurred in the roadway, there were some shots fired, and at that point the victim had some friends that took him to the hospital.”
It was later verified that only the two suspects are gang members.
The probable cause statement stated that Houston, who was the driver of the vehicle, fired from the car to where the victim was standing, on the sidewalk. The juvenile suspect, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was arrested soon after the incident.
The probable cause statement said that the juvenile admitted, after being read his Miranda rights, that he was in the car with a person identified as “Menace” and that Menace was the driver of the car and the shooter.
“Metro Gang Detectives were able to identify ‘Menace’ as Darrious Houston with a possible address,” the statement said. “Metro Gang Detectives located the vehicle involved in the incident at the same location the arrested party was taken into custody.”
