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MIDVALE — A Salt Lake man whose 4-year-old son fired a shot intended for officers who were arresting his father, according to police, now faces several felony charges.
Sadaat Shamille Johnson, 27, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with child abuse and aggravated assault, third-degree felonies; and interfering with an arresting officer, a class B misdemeanor.
On Feb. 21, Johnson ordered food at the drive-thru of McDonald's, 425 W. 7200 South, but said employees got his order wrong. Johnson soon found himself in an argument with one of the employees about his order, according to charging documents.
"Johnson began swearing at (the employee) and slapped the receipt from her hand. (The employee) observed a firearm sitting on the passenger seat of Johnson's vehicle. Johnson became more agitated and he grabbed the firearm off the passenger seat and racked it, ejecting the bullet," the charges state.
He then put the gun down and continued arguing with the employee, who shut the drive-thru window. Johnson pounded on the window and "grabbed the firearm and began looking at it," according to the charges.
After his arrest, Johnson told detectives that he "blacked out" for 30 seconds and denied brandishing or racking his gun, despite surveillance video from the restaurant showing otherwise, the court documents allege.
The employee called 911 after shutting the drive-thru window. Unified police officers who responded to the McDonald's found Johnson still in his car in the parking lot. His windows were up and his doors were locked. When Johnson finally unlocked his door, officers said they pulled him out of the car and put him on the ground.
As that was happening, one of the officers noticed a firearm coming from the back seat of the car. The officer pushed the barrel out of the way just as a shot was fired. That officer suffered a minor injury on his arm from the "blast" of the gun, but was not struck by the bullet, which ended up in the awning above the restaurant, police said.
The officer yelled at the person in the back seat to drop the gun, then "peered into the car and saw a small child looking at him."
When police later questioned the boy, he said he got his father's gun and "shot the police because he wanted his daddy back," the charges state.
The boy told investigators that Johnson had placed the gun behind the driver's seat before police arrived because — as the father allegedly told his son — "he didn't want to shoot the lady at the Happy Meal store," according to the charges.
Johnson also allegedly told his son, "The police officer cannot open the door."
The charges do not specifically state whether Johnson told his son to shoot at the officers, something Unified police said they had been investigating. Johnson allegedly claimed to detectives that he moved the gun from the front passenger seat to behind the driver's seat — closer to where his son was sitting — "because the food was sitting on it."
The boy's 3-year-old sister was also in the back seat of the vehicle.
Johnson admitted to police that it wasn't the first time his son had "gotten his hands on a gun." He said he "did not teach (his son) bad things about police, but only told him to 'keep away' from police if possible," according to the charges.
Prosecutors have requested that Johnson be held in the Salt Lake County Jail without bail, pending trial, noting that he only recently moved to Utah from Georgia and could be a flight risk. They also say he has "no regard for the safety of his children."
After the shooting, Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera praised the actions of the officers, who did not return fire and were quick to recognize a small child had the gun. She also said she had never seen anything like this before in her law enforcement career.
"This is a sad day for us, because the person that pulled that trigger is 4 years old," Rivera said. "Just think of the gravity of that. A 4-year-old was told, we believe, by the father, to pull the trigger and shoot a police officer."
