MIDVALE, Utah (AP) — Investigators believe a man told his 4-year-old child to shoot at officers after a dispute over his order at a McDonald’s drive-thru in suburban Salt Lake City on Monday, police said. An officer was able to swipe at the gun as it was fired, sending the bullet away.
The unidentified man brandished a gun at the takeout window at the Midvale restaurant and demanded that his order be corrected, a spokesman for the Unified Police Department, Sgt. Melody Cutler, said . After workers asked him to go to a waiting area while they corrected his order, they called the police, she said.
The man was uncooperative and had to be pulled from the car, Cutler said. But when officers took the man into custody, someone looked back and saw a gun aimed from a rear window, she said. The officer who flicked the gun to the side as it was fired also yelled “kid” at other officers after seeing how young the gunman was, Cutler said.
A witness saw the man tell the 4-year-old, who was sitting in the back seat with a 3-year-old sibling, to shoot with the gun, Cutler said. She declined to elaborate.
Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera said it was a sad day for law enforcement officers and the community.
“That an adult thinks it’s okay to encourage a four-year-old to pull out a gun and shoot the police illustrates how out of hand the campaign against the police has gotten,” she said.
