Homeless man run over while sleeping under Salt Lake City overpass

An SUV driver ran over and seriously injured a man sleeping beneath a Salt Lake City interstate offramp early Monday.

Salt Lake City police identified the 38-year-old man who was run over was experiencing homelessness and had been sleeping in a parking lot beneath the Interstate 15 ramp, near 545 West 600 South.

The driver, who police said works in the area and regularly parks in that lot, ran over the man just before 6 a.m. Police noted it was still dark outside and there are no lights beneath the ramp.

The driver hit the man in a gravel portion of the lot, where people experiencing homelessness are known to camp. The driver stayed at the scene and is cooperating with SLCPD’s investigation, according to police.

The man the driver ran over was initially in critical condition, police said, but after an ambulance took him to a hospital, medical staff upgraded his condition to “serious, but stable.”

SLCPD’s crash analysis reconstruction team as well as the department’s crime lab are leading the investigation due to the “severity of the man’s injuries,” police said.

The parking lot where the man was hit marks the site of murals meant to draw attention to homeless youth in Salt Lake City.

Vandals defaced some of the murals this summer with a new message calling out the so-called hypocrisy of the art piece and the arguable futility and cruelty of camp abatements in the area. The new message read, “Homeless were evicted from here.”

Police continue to investigate the crash.