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SALT LAKE CITY — Criminal charges were filed Friday against two Las Vegas men accused in a string of car burglaries that led to police shooting a woman who was accompanying them.
Michael Salvador Torres, 24, and Jose Flores, 34, are charged in Cedar City's 5th District Court with receiving a stolen vehicle, a second-degree felony, and two counts of burglary of a vehicle, a class A misdemeanor.
Torres faces additional charges of theft, a class A misdemeanor; drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, class B misdemeanors.
On Thursday, Iron County sheriff's deputies and officers from other police agencies were called to the Parowan's Travel America, 1130 N. 100 West, on a report of a man and woman "actively burglarizing vehicles."
Officers found the couple and confronted them.
"The female was holding a screwdriver in her hand. An altercation ensued and shots were fired by Enoch City Police Corp. Jeremy Dunn. The female, Ivonne Casimiro, 29, from Las Vegas, Nevada, was struck two times in the leg," according to a statement from the Iron County Sheriff's Office.
Casimiro also "made a threatening move toward the officers," according to an Iron County Jail report.
Casimiro was taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center with injuries not considered to be life-threatening, police said. She is expected to face criminal charges once she is released from the hospital. Flores was arrested at the scene.
Following the shooting, investigators learned of a second man, Torres, connected with the couple and "began a large-scale search," according to another report. While searching for Torres, investigators learned he "had changed his clothing a couple of times and was apparently trying to avoid the officers looking for him," the report states.
Torres was located a few hours later at the Family Dollar store in Parowan and arrested.
The men are accused of breaking into at least two vehicles after the trio, who were traveling together, ran out of gas and needed money, according to police. The group was actually spotted by a deputy at the rest stop on I-15 south of Cedar City on Wednesday.
"At that time Mr. Torres was seen pouring some gas from a gas can into the vehicle's gas tank," according to the report.
The car was not listed as stolen at that time, but when deputies ran the same license plate again on Thursday in a national database, it was listed as stolen out of Las Vegas, police said.
Flores said the group stole a jacket — the same one Casimiro was wearing when she was shot — as well as tools, bullets and other objects from the cars, including a loaded marijuana pipe that the group promptly smoked, according to police. One car had a window broken out. The second had an unlocked door and was burglarized, the report states.
After Torres was arrested and searched, police found a wallet with a $500 check inside made out to someone else, according to an Iron County Jail report. When police tracked down the woman who wrote the check, she said she had given Torres a ride to the city offices of Parowan, "and he must have stolen the wallet out of her vehicle while they were on their way there," the report states.
