Officials say the driver rear-ended a Utah Highway Patrol vehicle, stopped in freeway traffic and approached the trooper with a knife before being shot.
MURRAY, UT — A witness video captured the moments after a driver rear-ended a Utah Highway Patrol trooper on Interstate 15 Friday, then stopped in the freeway and advanced with a knife before the trooper fired, state officials said.
The shooting shut down northbound I-15 for hours through Murray and South Salt Lake, turning a late-afternoon traffic stop into a major police investigation and a widely shared video clip. Utah Department of Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason said the driver had been operating recklessly before striking the trooper’s vehicle near 4500 South. The encounter ended near 3300 South, where the driver stopped in live traffic lanes, got out and confronted the trooper, Mason said. The suspect died at the scene, and the trooper was placed on administrative leave while an outside team investigates.
Authorities said the chain of events began just before 5 p.m. Friday, March 27, when a trooper traveling northbound on I-15 was rear-ended by a reckless driver near 4500 South. Mason said the driver then swerved around the trooper instead of stopping, prompting the trooper to activate emergency lights and begin a traffic stop. Officials said the vehicle continued north until it came to a halt near 3300 South, in the middle of the freeway. There, both men got out. “At some point during that interaction, the suspect produced a knife, and our trooper discharged his firearm,” Mason said in a briefing with reporters Friday evening. Video recorded by witness Lizi Heaps from a nearby vehicle shows the suspect’s car stopped ahead of her, the trooper stepping out with his weapon drawn and multiple shots fired within seconds.
Heaps, who was driving on the freeway when the encounter unfolded in front of her, said she began recording after noticing what she believed was a high-speed pursuit. She told local television that the suspect stopped directly in front of her car and got out looking angry. “He was so angry, storming over to the trooper like he was ready to attack,” Heaps said. She also said the driver appeared to speed up and slow down erratically before the stop and seemed to swerve toward the trooper during the pursuit. Officials have not publicly released the suspect’s name, age or hometown, and they have not said how large the knife was or whether any body-camera or dash-camera footage will be released. They also have not said how many shots the trooper fired in the formal investigative record, though one local report, citing video reviewed at the scene, said the trooper fired 11 times. What is clear, officials said, is that the trooper was not injured and no one else was inside the suspect’s vehicle.
The confrontation played out on one of the Wasatch Front’s busiest freeway corridors at the start of the evening commute, magnifying its effect beyond the immediate shooting scene. Northbound traffic was diverted at 4500 South for much of the evening, and transportation officials urged drivers onto alternate routes including I-215 and State Street. Rows of cars backed up as troopers, firefighters and medical responders worked around the stopped vehicles and investigators began processing the scene. The location also underscored how quickly ordinary freeway enforcement can become a critical incident. Friday’s shooting was at least the second fatal officer-involved encounter on I-15 in Utah in March. Earlier in the month, a separate traffic-stop shooting in Draper also ended in a fatality, adding to public attention on police use of force during roadside encounters. Unlike that earlier case, officials in Friday’s shooting said the confrontation began after the trooper’s own vehicle was struck, then shifted into an attempted stop and an armed face-to-face encounter in live traffic.
Under Utah’s officer-involved critical incident protocol, the investigation was turned over to Salt Lake County’s OICI Team 4, led by the West Jordan Police Department. Mason said the trooper would be placed on administrative leave, which is standard after a fatal shooting by law enforcement. As of Sunday, March 29, authorities had not announced the suspect’s identity, had not released any autopsy information and had not said when additional video might be made public. No charges are expected against the dead suspect, but the investigative team will still work to document the crash, reconstruct the stop, review witness statements and determine the exact sequence of movements before shots were fired. That process usually includes interviews with the involved officer and other troopers, examination of vehicle positions and damage, and collection of any freeway or in-car video. Officials have not announced a date for the next public briefing, and no court hearing is scheduled because the case remains in the investigative stage rather than a filed criminal prosecution.
For drivers who were caught in the shutdown, the scene was sudden and chaotic. Heaps said she was terrified as the encounter unfolded only feet from her vehicle, and the video reflects that compressed timeline: stopped cars, the suspect vehicle blocking part of the roadway and the sound of gunfire breaking through rush-hour traffic. The witness account added human detail to an event first described in official terms. Mason’s briefing focused on the crash, the attempted stop and the knife, while Heaps’ description conveyed the fear inside nearby cars as people realized the stop was turning violent in front of them. Additional troopers reached the scene moments later and, along with medical personnel, tried to save the suspect, officials said, but he was pronounced dead there. By late Friday night, the freeway closure was still in place as investigators marked the scene, photographed the vehicles and worked lane by lane through evidence collection under headlights and emergency lights.
The case remained active Sunday, with investigators still working to identify the suspect publicly and assemble the full evidence record from the crash near 4500 South to the shooting near 3300 South. The next milestone is an updated release from the West Jordan-led critical incident team or the Utah Department of Public Safety.
Author note: Last updated March 29, 2026.