A Utah Valley University soccer player has been arrested for shooting three BYU students with a BB gun.
The 18-year-old was booked into the Utah County jail for investigation of three counts of aggravated assault on Tuesday, two days after he reportedly fired the gun from a moving car on the Brigham Young University campus.
According to a probable cause statement, the teen was a passenger in a car driving past the Helaman Halls dorms shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday. Several shots from a CO2 BB gun pistol were fired at a group of students, striking three of them.
One of the victims was struck in the side of his head and required medical attention to remove the BB.
According to BYU police, the teen was one of five people inside the vehicle. Each of the other four told police the teen arrested owned the BB gun and fired the shots through an open window of the car.
The driver of the car told police he “yelled at [the teen] and told him to stop,” but the teen “was indifferent … and not concerned by any possible injuries” he “may have caused.” Another passenger told police the teen had fired the gun at him earlier that evening, “breaking the skin and causing the wound to bleed.”
According to the probable cause statement, the driver returned to the area where the shots had been fired and learned that at least one person had been wounded by the BB gun. Despite expressing concern, the driver left the area with his passengers because the teen “did not want to report the incident.”
BYU police wrote that the teen admitted he owns the BB gun, that he fired it at “several groups of people at Helaman Halls,” and that he knew at least one person had been wounded, but he did not want to report it to police.
UVU officials confirmed that the teen was a member of the school’s men’s soccer team. According to a university spokesman, he has been suspended from the team “while the investigation runs its course.”