Salt Lake City Police Ask For Help in Finding Hit-And-Run Driver Caught On Video
Feb 13, 2020, 9:33 PM | Updated: 9:34 pm
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Officers with the Salt Lake City Police Department are asking for the public’s help in identifying a hit-and-run driver who was seen hitting a pedestrian on an Uber driver’s dashcam.
Spencer Johnson said it was around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 19 when he noticed something unusual just up the road from him at 900 South and West Temple.
“I saw something get hit. At first, I thought it was debris, like a garbage bag or something in the road,” Johnson explained. “As I came up closer, I realized there was a person there.”
Johnson said he had just picked someone for Uber when the crash happened. He said he pulled his car in front of the injured man to make sure he wouldn’t be struck again.
“I asked him if he was okay, and he said, ‘no,'” Johnson said. “I was kind of in shock, like, I don’t understand why someone would hit someone and take off, you know?”
The crash was captured by Johnson’s dashcam. Salt Lake City police officers shared the video on Wednesday, asking for people who might know who the driver is to come forward.
Sergeant Keith Horrocks with the Salt Lake City Police Department said detectives would very much like to hear that driver’s side of the story.
“We’d really kind of like to get their side of what happened,” Horrocks said. “There’s a very small off-chance that maybe they don’t even know that they hit the pedestrian.”
Horrocks added drivers need to pay extra attention at night and always stop if they think they might have hit something.
“We want to just stress that drivers need to pay attention, especially during the winter months. We have a lot of dark hours in the day,” Horrocks said.
Johnson believed it’s unlikely the driver didn’t realize they had hit someone.
“He just swerved around him and then he sped,” Johnson said. “He started going faster up the ramp, you know, because I think he knew that he hit somebody and he didn’t want to stop.”
Johnson said he saw pieces of the car’s bumper in the street after the crash.
Horrocks said the man who was struck had only minor injuries and didn’t have to go to a hospital. Detectives believe the hit-and-run car was a Chevy Impala, around 2011 to 2013 model, with some likely damage to the front.
