A shocking video shows a four-year-old boy as he shoots at police while they were arresting his father at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Utah. allegedly for messing up his order, and authorities say the father told him to do it.
Cops with the Unified Police Department were on scene at the Salt Lake City-area fast food joint because workers there had called 911 about a customer brandishing a firearm at employees.
ABC4 reports that as officers attempted to handcuff the boy’s father, Sadaat Johnson, 27, who had been identified as the customer in question, the unnamed child could be heard firing the weapon off-camera.
“Gun! Drop the Gun” one of the officers can be heard yelling as they unholster their own firearms. “It’s just a kid!” Another one yells. “You alright, kid?” a female officer can be heard asking the child, who was crying and visibly upset. “It’s okay.”
Johnson was at the McDonald’s with his two children, the 4-year-old boy, and a 3-year-old, at the time of the arrest and shooting.
The incident occurred back in February; however bodycam footage was just recently made public.
The New York Post reports that an investigation revealed that Johnson “told the child to shoot at the police,” however no such request could be heard on the officer’s bodycam.
Meanwhile, the child has since been placed into protective custody, according to court records obtained by ABC4. Authorities said the boy was trying to stop his father’s arrest when he grabbed the gun and shot at police.
“He wanted his daddy back,” court records say of the boy.
Johnson told police that this wasn’t the first time the child had gotten his hands on a gun.
In March, the father pleaded guilty to felony counts of child abuse or neglect and aggravated assault, per reports. A misdemeanor charge for interfering with a police officer was dismissed.
He was sentenced to 120 days in jail and three years of probation. The court also ordered Johnson to attend anger management and parenting classes, and also banned him from owning firearms.
Johnson was contrite at sentencing, telling the court it was a “very stupid mistake” and apologizing for the course of events that day.
“I would like to apologize for my actions on that day,” Johnson told the court. “It was a very stupid mistake that I should have never made.”
Judge Kristine Johnson noted that it “could have been much, much worse than it was” considering no officers were harmed.
“I think that everybody involved knows that,” the judge said.
Alexis Davis, Johnson’s wife and the mother of their 4-year old child, told Fox13 that she was in shock when Johnson’s friend called and told her what happened.
“It kind of brought me to my knees because he put a loaded weapon in my four year old’s hand,” said Davis.
Davis added that both children were in the car at the time of the incident, which “will mess with my son mentally in the future and that’s something I would have to deal with,” she said.
