SOUTH SALT LAKE — The car sat idling in the middle of the street, a CD of Motown hits playing over and over.
Blood oozed down the black primer paint of the car. A small bullet hole was on the side panel, near the hood. Nearby, some clothing lay in the middle of the street where a wounded man had collapsed.
South Salt Lake police said the man was gunned down at the intersection of 3300 South and West Temple about 3:30 a.m. Thursday. Investigators believe he had stopped at the intersection when someone fired shots from a handgun. The man was shot in the face.
"We have a bullet hole in him and a bullet hole in the car," South Salt Lake Police Capt. Tracy Tingey said Thursday.
The 26-year-old victim drove into the oncoming traffic lane, slamming his car into a bus bench and a freestanding concrete ashtray, which shattered. Police said he got out of the car, bleeding severely. He wandered into the middle of the street, where he collapsed.
Police closed off 3300 South from Main Street to 300 West, rerouting traffic for about 7 1/2 hours. During that time, crime scene investigators laid out markers that stretched more than a block.
Officers called in a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter to shoot pictures from the sky because the crime scene was so large. Crime scene tape kept people from going to work in an area of convenience stores, novelty shops, auto body and paint stores.
"It's crazy," one man said while trying to get to work. "It was a pain in the (expletive) to get here."
Police said the victim was taken to LDS Hospital in fair condition, where he is expected to recover. Detectives questioned him, but the man did not remember much.
Police said they have no witnesses to the shooting and were looking into the possibility it was gang related. The victim is a former gang member, investigators said.
"He said that if we did find him (the shooter), he would not testify because it would only make things worse," Tingey said.
Police were looking into a pair of shootings reported on I-15 to see if there were any connections. Officers had ruled out at least one of those shootings on Thursday.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com