Utah man arrested after following, firing at driver in road rage case, police say

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A 57-year-old man was arrested in Salt Lake City after a road rage incident where police say he fired a gun at another driver, claiming self-defense, although officers found no evidence supporting his claims.
• He said he believed the other driver was intoxicated, followed him onto two freeways, and the confrontation escalated after a minor collision occurred, police say.
• Officers determined the other driver was not under the influence and did not have a baseball bat, as the arrested man had alleged.

SALT LAKE CITY — A man who claimed he fired his gun in self-defense during a road rage confrontation was arrested after police said they determined his claims of defending himself were unfounded.

Peter M. Lyons, 57, was arrested Wednesday for investigation of aggravated assault with a road rage penalty enhancement.

Just after 4 p.m., Lyons was driving east on 2600 South in Woods Cross when a 32-year-old man who was changing lanes nearly hit him, according to a police booking affidavit. Lyons "believed (the other driver) was intoxicated and began following him."

Lyons followed the other driver onto I-15, then south onto I-215 and exited at 700 North. The other driver, who knew he was being followed, pulled into the parking area of a business at 369 N. 2370 West in Salt Lake City.

"(Lyons') vehicle ran into the back of (the other driver's) vehicle causing minor damage," the affidavit states.

At that point, Lyons claimed that the other driver got out of his car with a baseball bat, so he fired a round through his own windshield, according to the affidavit. As of Thursday, it was unclear where the bullet ended up, but police say no injuries were reported.

"(Lyons) stated that he did this because he feared being assaulted with the bat, but was pointing the gun away from the victim," the arrest report says. The other man got back into his car and drove to a dead end street and Lyons again followed. Both men then stepped out of their vehicles.

"(Lyons) pointed a handgun at (the man), ordering him to get on the ground," the affidavit alleges.

Instead, the man got back into his car and drove to the Chevron at the Salt Lake City International Airport where police responded.

When officers began investigating, they learned that the other driver was not intoxicated and did not have any odor of alcohol on his breath. Furthermore, no bat was found in the man's vehicle, police said.

Because of that, Lyons was arrested.

"Unfortunately, cases of road rage, as alleged here, can absolutely threaten our community, and put lives at risk," said Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown in a statement. "The allegations in this case are serious, and I appreciate the thoroughness of our officers investigating this case."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Police & CourtsUtahSalt Lake CountyDavis County

Pat Reavy

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.