Update: April 25, 2019 – According to Kingsbury, police have located and spoken with the driver and they deny any involvement with the incident. Forensic tests are being conducted on the car.
April 22, 2019 – On April 20th, 2019, cyclist Trever Kingsbury was cycling down Emigration Canyon with a friend when a car allegedly ran him off the road twice near the intersection of Foothill Drive and Sunnyside and dragged him approximately 100 yards. Trever sustained injuries, and is in pain. In his own words from his Facebook post, Trever describes the incident,
On 4/20 @ 10:05am coming out of Emigration at the intersection of Sunnyside and Foothill a friend and I were run off the road twice by a Silver 2013 Mercedes Coup with plate # V581DU. On his 2nd attempt to hit us he locked up his brakes at 35mph and I was tossed onto his car and drug for almost a 100 yards while he accelerated away. There were tons of people riding at the time and we are looking for anyone driving or riding that might have seen the accident or this driver. The police aren’t doing anything to prevent this man from injuring or killing another cyclist and “it might be a few weeks till they have a chance to look into it”. Extremely frustrated after an expensive and painful night in the hospital and would greatly appreciate anyone’s help. A cycling lawyer has already been contacted. Any specific media, govt, or police contacts would also be appreciated!
Trever sustained a number of injuries, fortunately it seems that he’s incurred no major injuries. He said, “Luckily everything in the first 24 hours remained superficial. After 24hours the swelling in my leg got bad enough to warrant ER trip due to loss of sensation, decreased motor strength and vasculature stuff in my foot. They ruled out fracture and DVT for sure which is good, but, found swelling to be compressing nerves and superficial blood supply to my leg leading to extreme neurogenic pain increases. Not mentioning the tweaked neck, back, hip, head and pretty solid loss of skin. Thankful nothing major like a femur fracture or head trauma but the potential for something like that or death was far higher than I ever want anyone to go through.”
Mark LeBlanc was riding with Trever at the time and posted this on Facebook about the encounter:
I was with Trevor and I witnessed the entire incident. This was not an accident. This was intentional. This was malicious. He tried to run us off the road and then he slammed on the brakes so we’d hit him from behind. We were going downhill at 30-35 mph. The only reason I wasn’t also taken down was because I went off the road to avoid it. When he did this, there weren’t even any cars in the left lane, but he was in the right lane trying to kill us anyway. The police aren’t taking this seriously at all. Please help share this story. Trevor and I are also MTB enthusiasts. We’re just like all of you. We love riding our bikes. Our road bikes, mountain bikes, cruisers….. We love bikes. And we love our families. We want to know that when we go for a ride, we won’t be killed. We always want to make it home for dinner. This should be a common ground for all cyclists.
His bike is mostly ok as well, but Trever, who is working on a Doctorate of Physical Therapy at Rocky Mountain University Of Health Professions in Provo, is not happy about the lack of followup from Salt Lake City Police Department:
Luckily my bike stayed in 1 piece except for some cracks and component damage. Bike faired better than body I think! The police have all the on scene photos. At this point it’s just trying to get some pressure on SLPD to not take motorists running people off the road with malicious intent lightly. This isn’t a bumper hit and run, it’s aggravated assault and for them to immediately disregard witnesses and say it was probably an accident is pretty ridiculous. And to not even follow up. I personally have a name and address that I can’t release but they won’t follow up. Meanwhile he could be having repairs be done to his car.
Anyone with additional information is encouraged to contact the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000.
Salt Lake City Police Department Public Information Officer Detective Greg Wilking spoke to Cycling Utah (4-23-19) about the case. He said, “We do take these things seriously. That’s the bottom line.” He stated that officers did respond to the scene to investigate, but there was some initial confusion on the victim’s part regarding the plate number and make and model. That was sorted out later in the day. A detective was assigned to the case on Monday, and a followup investigation is taking place. It is normal procedure for the patrol officer to respond, and then for detectives to be assigned to the case to follow up, “There may not be an immediate response or we may not be able to solve the crime in one hour or that it will go unsolved. Sometime it’s a matter of letting those (hit and run) detectives do what they do best,” he said. “If there’s something to follow up on they do it. They put that case together. It’s a very lengthy process. They wrap it up nicely so that when they take it to the DA’s (district attorney) office there’s very little doubt that their going to be succesful in prosecuting it.”
Update: April 23, 2019. Salt Lake City Police Department posted the following tweet at 9:53 am, 4-23-19 indicating that they are taking it seriously and investigating:
“We at #SLCPD take #hitandruns w #injuries very seriously. Multiple #officers responded to the scene, canvassed the area for the vehicle, & did follow up w the plate info. A #detective is working diligently to follow-up on evidence in this case”
We at #SLCPD take #hitandruns w #injuries very seriously. Multiple #officers responded to the scene, canvassed the area for the vehicle, & did follow up w the plate info. A #detective is working diligently to follow-up on evidence in this case https://t.co/i5zq4fkZFa
— SLC Police Dept. (@slcpd) April 23, 2019
