Police Say 4-Year-Old Fired Gun at Them While Arresting Father at McDonald’s, Claim Man Encouraged Son

A Utah father who was arrested for threatening McDonald’s drive-thru employees over an incorrect order is now being charged with felony child abuse after his 4-year-old son fired a weapon at police officers.

The Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake wrote in a statement that officers responded to a McDonald’s in Midvale around 1:30 p.m. on Monday following reports of 27-year-old Sadaat Johnson pointing a gun at employees after they handed him the wrong order.

Officers soon moved to arrest Johnson after he refused to step out of his vehicle. As they attempted to remove him from the car, an officer noticed a gun pointing at them from the back seat. The officer was able to knock the weapon away as it fired, with the bullet grazing another officer’s arm. They saw the assailant was Johnson’s 4-year-old son, who was sitting in the backseat with his 3-year-old sibling. According to the statement, police believe after an initial investigation that Johnson did “encourage” his son to shoot police officers, but didn’t offer any further details to substantiate that claim.

“This is a sad day for law enforcement and our community,” Sheriff Rosie Rivera wrote in the statement. “To have an adult think it’s okay to encourage a four-year-old to pull a firearm and shoot at police illustrates how out of hand the campaign against police have gotten. This needs to stop, and we need to come together as a community to find solutions to the challenges we face in our neighborhoods.”

Sadaat Johnson has since been charged with felony child abuse and threatening the use of a dangerous weapon. In the above interview with Fox 13 News Utah, Rivera elaborated that she had “never seen anything like this in my 28 years in law enforcement. … That’s just unbelievable to me. Somebody’s taught him that, and that’s the scary part.”