MIDVALE, Utah — A Utah man is in custody after police said he told his 4-year-old child to fire a gun at officers during a Monday incident at a McDonald’s in Midvale.
According to the Unified Police Department, the incident began at about 1:30 p.m. when a man in a Honda brandished a gun outside the restaurant, KSTU reported.
Employees told the police that the man became enraged after an order he had placed in the drive-thru line was wrong, KTVK reported.
When police arrived, they removed the uncooperative man from the vehicle, but an officer noticed “a firearm coming outside the vehicle” after the man had been extracted, UPD Sheriff Rosie Rivera told KSTU.
According to KTVK, the officer swiped the gun to the side as it was fired before realizing that the person who fired the gun was a child.
Police later confirmed that the child who fired the gun was 4 years old and that a 3-year-old sibling was also in the backseat of the vehicle, the TV station reported.
Meanwhile, witnesses to the incident told police that they overheard the father tell his child to shoot. The fired shot struck a restaurant awning, and the officer sustained minor injuries to his arm, KSTU reported.
The Unified Police Department also released the following statement regarding the incident:
“This is a sad day for law enforcement and our community. To have an adult think it is OK to encourage a four-year-old to pull a firearm and shoot at police illustrates how out of hand the campaign against police has 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. Officers are here to protect and serve and we are beyond belief that something like [that] could happen.”
It was not immediately clear what charges the man in custody faces.