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CENTERVILLE — A man was arrested after police say he fired a pellet gun at a woman who had passed him in another car on I-15 on Monday.
The incident caused an estimated $2,000 in damage to the woman's vehicle, but no injuries were reported.
Police say the road rage incident happened southbound on I-15 in Kaysville after a vehicle passed the man's vehicle while they were both in the HOV lane, and the man then "tailgated" the other vehicle, according to a police booking affidavit. The woman who was driving the other vehicle "tapped her brakes in order to tell him to back off," police said.
The man sped up to the passenger side of the other car and shot the pellet handgun at least four times from his window, the affidavit states.
The shots struck the passenger side windows, doors and windshield, according to court documents. Utah Highway Patrol Sgt. Roy Carlson said there were three bullet holes in the windows and shattered glass in the other car, but neither the driver nor passenger of the vehicle that was struck was injured.
Shailee Brimhall, who was driving the car that was shot, said the man, who was driving an SUV, was going "significantly under the speed limit" as she approached him on the freeway, causing her to pass him when the solid lines broke in the HOV lane, making it legal to leave the lane.
After she says she tapped on her brakes, the man crossed the HOV lane's double white line and sped up, firing the shots at her car. Brimhall expressed disbelief at the incident.
"I couldn't even put words into it," she said.
She said shots hit the car where her 6-year-old son would sit, had he been with her at the time. She's grateful that he wasn't.
After the incident, the man kept driving Carlson said, and witnesses followed his vehicle as he exited the freeway at Parrish Lane.
Troopers performed a high-risk stop and arrested the man at the Maverik gas station in Centerville. The man's two children were in the back of the car, according to Carlson.
While conducting a search warrant on the man's vehicle, investigators found a "black and brown pellet handgun," multiple containers of marijuana, a grinder and a glass pipe with burnt residue inside, the affidavit states. The man had a valid marijuana card, according to police.
Utah's medical marijuana law allows those with medical marijuana cards provided by a doctor's recommendation for certain conditions to use. Smoking medical cannabis is not legal in Utah. It can be purchased in the form of a capsule, tablet, concentrated oil, sublingual, transdermal or topical preparation, a gelatinous cube or unprocessed flower.
Travis Leroy Peterson, 52, was arrested for investigation of two counts of aggravated assault, use or possession of drug paraphernalia, criminal mischief and being a cardholder smoking cannabis.
Contributing: Andrew Adams
