A police pursuit and subsequent shooting on Interstate 15 left one man injured early Wednesday and shut down southbound traffic near Layton, causing gridlock during the morning commute.
The man police were pursuing was injured in the shooting. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was hospitalized and in custody, according to the Layton Police Department. No officers were injured.
After about six hours of heavy traffic, all lanes of southbound I-15 were open again as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to Sgt. Cameron Roden with the Utah Highway Patrol.
The dangerous pursuit “was made worse by the fact that it happened during rush hour traffic on the freeway,” said Lt. Travis Lyman with Layton police. “Thankfully it ended with nobody else being hurt.”
The call began around 6:30 a.m., when a woman reported a strange car parked in her driveway with a man inside who appeared to be sleeping, Lyman said.
An officer responded and saw that the sleeping man had a gun in his pocket, so he called for backup before waking the man.
Once several more officers arrived, they woke the man, who immediately took off and hit a police car in the process, Lyman said.
An unmarked police car followed the man, since area roads were filled with morning rush-hour traffic, Lyman said.
When the man got to Highway 193, he seemed to realize that he was being followed by police, then “really took off at that point,” Lyman said.
An officer at an intersection ahead of the man deployed road spikes in attempt to stop him, but the man was able to continue driving and eventually made it to I-15.
Driving southbound on I-15, the man’s tires began coming apart. Amid rush hour traffic on the freeway, Layton officers tried to slow traffic down to create space between the man and other drivers, Lyman said.
After the man started opening fire at officers, police performed a PIT maneuver, or “precision immobilization technique” maneuver, to spin his car out and end the pursuit. The maneuver involves a pursuing car hitting the side of the tail end of a vehicle, which can cause it to lose control and stop.
Once the man stopped, police returned fire on him, but the man took off again. Police performed another PIT maneuver, spinning his car, and at that point, the man surrendered and was taken into custody, Lyman said.
The man was shot once by police, which hit him in the hip. Lyman said the man will likely be released from the hospital today, then booked into jail.
No one else was injured, but Lyman said police are still working to determine where all the rounds the man fired ended up.
This marked the 18th police shooting in Utah so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
