EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — Next week will mark two years since Darrell Lewis lost his son, Caelan.
The 19-year-old Marine was walking in a crosswalk on March 19, 2022, when he was hit and killed by a 14-year-old riding a dirt bike at high speed.
“You will see zero parental involvement, access to either four-wheelers or motorbikes, and this is a story that gets played out over and over again,” said Lewis. “Either the kid kills somebody else or he kills himself.”
Lewis thinks his family is now facing retaliation for getting the Utah County Sheriff’s Office involved in trying to make his neighborhood safer, finding rocks and eggs thrown at his house.
“It's a grudge against me because I took a stand against them,” he said.
In a different Eagle Mountain neighborhood this past weekend, a man was arrested for shooting an airsoft gun at a group of teens he believed were doorbell-ditching his home, Sgt. Spencer Cannon said.
“When someone comes up and knocks on your door and runs away, you are not justified in coming out of your house and shooting at them,” he said.
Cannon said the man had called the Sheriff’s Office multiple times, reporting teens doorbell ditching his house.
“We've even had deputies assigned to park just down the street, purposely just spend a time, an hour or two between 8:00 and 10:30 or 11:00 or so in an effort to try to find who these kids are,” he said.
Despite everything he’s been through, Lewis believes responding with violence is never the answer.
“You have to think,” he said. “Being angry is easy. Thinking is the hard part. I recommend thinking.”
