Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- A 46-year-old Sandy man has been charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse accusing him of shooting two 14-year-old boys with a BB gun.
- He is accused of firing at them in retaliation for the teens shooting gel pellets at his daughter and other girls who were in a golf cart.
SANDY — A Sandy man has been charged with shooting two teenage boys with a BB gun multiple times in retaliation for an earlier incident with his daughter.
Regan Patrick Guth, 46, was charged Friday in Utah's 3rd District Court with two counts of aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony.
On Aug. 6, two 14-year-old boys were riding an electric scooter with friends in the Pepperwood neighborhood, near 12000 South and Wasatch Boulevard, when they spotted some girls from school riding in a golf cart. One of the boys started shooting gel pellets from an Orbeez gun at the golf cart, according to charging documents.
The girls drove off and the friends were about to leave the area when one of the teens told investigators they were "intercepted by a black vehicle. The driver of the vehicle, later identified as defendant Regan Patrick Guth, rolled down the window and began shooting at him," the charges state.
Prosecutors say Guth fired a BB gun multiple times at the two boys.
One teen says he fell off the scooter and was shot, again, while he was on the ground. The second teen also fell off the scooter and tried to run but was shot multiple times. One boy "was shot three times in the chest, three times on the right thigh and once in the left forearm, which required surgical removal and a suture to close the incision," according to charging documents.
The other was shot in the hand and chest and required surgery to have one of the BBs removed from his hand, the charges say.
Guth told police his daughter came home crying and said "she had been hit by 'something,'" which upset him and prompted Guth to go look for the teens and shoot them with a BB gun when he found them, charging documents state.
