Video shows toddler, 4, shoot at police trying to arrest his dad outside McDonald’s drive-thru

Utah authorities have finally released bodycam footage showing what transpired moments before a 4-year-old boy opened fire on the police during a viral incident that happened outside a McDonald’s back in February.

As previously reported, before being pulled out of his vehicle and arrested, the boy’s father, Sadaat Johnson, ordered the child to fire at the police.

Luckily, the officers saw that a child had fired the shot, which thankfully missed, and so instead of firing back, they gently pulled the boy and his sister out of the vehicle.

Watch:

The incident occurred around 1:30 pm on Feb. 21st after Johnson brandished a gun at several McDonald’s employees reportedly because of an incorrect order.

“An employee at the window told police that after Johnson started arguing with her about his order, he started swearing at her and slapped the receipt out of her hand. She said Johnson became more agitated, grabbed a handgun that was sitting on the passenger seat and racked it, ejecting a bullet before putting it back on the seat and continuing to argue,” local station KSTU reported.

“The worker said she closed the drive-thru window, but Johnson then hit the window, picked up the gun and ‘began looking at it.’ She said she feared he might shoot her or others, so she backed away from the window and called 911.”

When the authorities arrived, they ordered Johnson out of his vehicle. He refused to comply.

The authorities then pulled him out of his vehicle, dropped him to the ground, and began trying to cuff him. As this occurred, a shot rang out.

“Drop the gun!” an officer then shouted.

“Kid, kid, kids!” another officer who’d spotted the kids then yelled moments later.

The fact that the second officer saw the kids was extremely fortunate.

“The car’s tinted windows made it difficult to see inside, but the officer saw that the person who had pulled the trigger was a 4-year-old boy,” The Salt Lake Tribune reported at the time of the incident.

By seeing the kid, the officer wound up “preventing a horrific tragedy,” police spokesperson Sgt. Melody Cutler correctly noted at the time.

Indeed, because in a situation where suspects open fire at the police, the police usually fire back, often leading to immediate death for the shooter.

After the incident occurred, the children’s mother, Alexis Davis, expressed shock over what had happened.

“It kind of brought me to my knees because he put a loaded weapon in my four year old’s hand,” she said of her husband ordering their child to shoot at the police.

Listen:

Local Sheriff Rosie Rivera was equally taken aback.

“To have an adult think it is okay to encourage a [4]-year-old to pull a firearm and shoot at police illustrates how out of hand the campaign against police has gotten,” she said in a statement back in February, according to Fox News.

“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 [this] could happen.”

Johnson was at the time charged with “third-degree felonies of child abuse/neglect and aggravated assault, as well as a misdemeanor charge of interference with an arresting officer,” according to KSTU.

Strangely enough, despite the horrific nature of the crime, Johnson’s mugshot could be found nowhere on the internet back then. Months later, it’s still missing.

Critics wonder whether the media have purposefully hidden Johnson’s mugshot because he’s not white:

Vivek Saxena

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