This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A suspected car thief and another man remained in critical condition Tuesday, the day after a high-speed chase culminated in a multi-vehicle crash in downtown Tooele.
Tooele County Sheriff Paul Wimmer said an orange Mitsubishi Eclipse, reported stolen, was spotted by a city animal control officer about 9 a.m. Monday. Notified by radio, a sheriff's deputy and city police officers soon were pursing the vehicle.
About 10 minutes later, the Eclipse ran a red light, collided with a Jeep, and then careened into two other vehicles stopped at the intersection of 400 N. Main Street.
The male suspect, identified as 23-year-old Marcello Anthony Aragon, of Tooele, was ejected from the Eclipse. He was flown to a Salt Lake City's University Hospital in "very critical" condition, Wimmer said.
Aragon has a brief criminal history in Tooele County, where court records show previous convictions for felony burglary and misdemeanor theft, attempted fleeing from police and assault on a law officer.
Another man, a 52-year-old Tooele resident, had to be extricated from the Jeep by emergency workers before first being taken to a Tooele hospital and then being flown to a Intermountain Medical Center in Murray. While still in critical condition on Tuesday, he had been stabilized.
The man's grandson, a 5-year-old boy also in the Jeep, was not thought seriously injured, but was transported to Salt Lake City's Primary Children's Hospital as a precaution.
Debris from the collisions struck the Janna's Java Drive Thru shop, breaking out a front window. No one inside was hurt.
Twitter: @remims