Salt Lake City police have arrested two men who they say were “bouncers” at a music venue early Sunday when a fight broke out at a nearby party that led to a shooting in the Ballpark neighborhood, hospitalizing a 20-year-old man.
Police Chief Mike Brown announced Monday in a news release that detectives, crime lab technicians and officers chased down multiple leads and conducted court-authorized searches that resulted in the arrest of a 47-year-old man and a 25-year-old man on suspicion of aggravated assault and felony discharge of a firearm.
“We now have a much clearer picture,” Brown says in the release, “of what quickly unfolded early Sunday morning in the Ballpark neighborhood.”
The release says surveillance video shows a fight erupted around 5:30 a.m. Sunday near 1489 S. Major St. at the entrance of the music venue involving the victim, who has not been named and has since been released from the hospital, and another person associated with the venue.
Police say the video shows the two suspects shooting multiple rounds in the direction of the victim and his car, which had others inside.
The younger suspect charged the car and continued firing at close range, police say, while video shows the victim shooting back.
After the gunfire, the release says, the two suspects got into separate vehicles and left.
When officers arrived — after receiving multiple 911 calls of the shooting — they found the 20-year-old man behind a car with a gunshot wound. Police have released no additional information about the person wounded.
As part of the investigation, detectives obtained a warrant and searched a West Jordan residence, where they seized multiple guns and ammunition. They also recovered a white Audi A6.
The Salt Lake Tribune does not normally name suspects until prosecutors have filed formal charges.
Crime in the Ballpark area dropped some in 2021 compared with the three previous years, according to a recent Tribune report, but violent crimes were up last year. Between 2016 and 2020, the neighborhood averaged three homicides a year. Police reported seven in 2020 and five in 2021.
“The Salt Lake City Police Department remains committed to confronting and interrupting the violence that occurs in our community,” Brown says in Monday’s release, “and to send a clear message that violence will not be tolerated.”
Follow @sltribnoyce