Salt Lake City bakery co-founder struck, killed by DUI suspect during police pursuit

Police named the woman Tuesday who was killed on Saturday when an alleged drunk driver crashed into her vehicle during a police chase through the west side of Salt Lake City.

Thy Hoang Vu, 33, was fatally hit when the DUI suspect dismantled her vehicle with “T-bones” near 500 North and 1200 West, according to a Salt Lake City police press release. The suspect was trying to evade a North Salt Lake police officer when Vu was killed. The crash is still being investigated.

According to a press release from Salt Lake City Police, police arrested a 39-year-old man on Tuesday in connection with the fatal accident. The man was taken into custody “immediately” after doctors said he could leave the hospital, the release said. He is being detained in Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of criminal car murder, drinking under the influence, driving with a revoked or revoked license, speeding, violation of right of way, reckless driving, and other suspected crimes.

Vu, a mother of two, had started the local bakery Mims SLC with her husband Tripp Mims during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her death resulted in a spate of social media posts from friends and residents.

A passenger in Vu’s vehicle was also injured in the crash. Until Tuesday, this woman – whom the police did not name – was in critical condition in the hospital. A dog that investigators believe was in Vu’s car died on the scene.

The driver of the fleeing vehicle and a passenger, both men, were hospitalized in serious condition, the police said. The passenger remains in the hospital, his name has not been published.

At around noon on Saturday, North Salt Lake Police received an initial report of two men handing a bottle of whiskey back and forth while one was driving a Ford F-250, officials said. Officials located the truck on US Route 89 and began a chase.

The truck then drove on Interstate 15 and drove into the Salt Lake area before colliding with Vu’s vehicle in the Fairpark neighborhood.

(Salt Lake City Police) North Salt Lake and Salt Lake City Police are responding to the crash on Saturday, October 16, 2021 at 1200 west and 500 north.

Crash is being investigated

Salt Lake County’s Critical Incident Protocol Team 1 is investigating the crash along with the Crash Analysis Reconstruction Team, which includes the Salt Lake City Police Department and several other Salt Lake Valley law enforcement agencies, according to SLCPD.com. However, no Salt Lake City police officers were involved in the persecution, the department said.

Police authorities typically keep logs of critical incidents involving officers after police shootings. But Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said Tuesday that they can be applied to police prosecutions as well.

“Police prosecutions are very dangerous and so we have very strict policies and procedures on these matters,” Brown said at a working session of Salt Lake City Council on Tuesday. “They can expose citizens, law enforcement agencies, and the fleeing violators to serious injury or death.”

Saturday in particular “overwhelmed” the department’s resources, Brown continued. He said the department received 35% more calls for the service between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., compared to the average number of calls received over the same period over the past 15 days. “We don’t know why that is,” he said.

A few hours before the Fairpark accident, a pedestrian in his thirties was injured when he was hit by a truck at the intersection of 1000 North and Redwood Road. The response to both crashes was a “one-two situation that required officials from across town to step in and help out,” Brown said.

Special forces including bicycle units, motor officers and gang units have been called in to deal with a backlog of service calls, but “this is not sustainable,” he said.

The police force remains understaffed and has 55 sworn vacancies as of this week, Brown said. To address some of these loopholes, the police chief said the department is in the process of hiring “police telephone specialists” who can take “minor calls” that do not require a response from the officer. “We expect they will be up and running by the first of the month,” he said.

Vu is described as “empathetic, generous, adventurous”

At the same working session, Salt Lake City Councilor Ana Valdemoros said that Vu is loved by the community.

“She has been really involved in helping colored communities and nonprofits and doing many things to improve the lives of others around the Salt Lake City area,” said Valdemoros. “So my heart goes out to Thy’s husband and the two children she left behind.” Vu “will certainly be missed.”

Vu and her husband had started their “cottage bakery” Mims SLC during the pandemic after Mims had been taken off from his full-time job as a sous chef at the Mexican restaurant Alamexo. Vu used her skills as a marketing manager at Salt Lake Community College to launch Mims SLC on Instagram.

Vu explained at the time the importance of “building this kind of micro-community in which we break bread with one another”.

“Not being cheesy,” she said, “but that’s really important to us – seeing a bunch of strangers come together and their only connection point being our bread.”

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Baked goods from Mims SLC’s in-house bakery, created by Thy Vu and her husband Tripp Mims, photographed in January. According to police, Vu was killed in a car accident on Saturday, October 16, 2021.

In addition to selling home-baked artisan bread, the couple also ran several successful bake sales and fundraising drives that benefited the Salt Lake Valley Covid Mutual Aid and the Utah Refugee Connection, an organization that mattered to Vu.

Vu was born and raised in Salt Lake City, but her parents are Vietnamese refugees who fled the country by boat in the early 1980s. “Refugees have been hit really hard by this pandemic and we wanted to do something to help,” she said.

When the tribune reached them, a relative of Vus declined to comment on Mims’ behalf.

According to a Give InKind page set up after Vu’s death, “she was incredibly empathetic, generous, adventurous, and passionate about her loved ones and their community.”

“She always thought of other people and made sure that whenever MimsSLC went well, donated to one of the community projects she was involved in,” the site says.

Instead of flowers, people who want to show their support for Vu’s family can donate to a cause she was involved in, including the English Skills Learning Center and Friends of Great Salt Lake, the site says.

A silent online auction in favor of Vu’s family will run until 7pm on Saturday. Items listed include beeswax candles, jewelry, quilts, custom tattoos, nail art and more, according to the Instagram account @livelikethy.

A family friend also set up a GoFundMe page for any expenses Mims or her two sons might have. The fund raised more than $ 53,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

– Tribune reporter Jordan Miller contributed to this story.

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