Police: Utah parents disarm son at school
15-year-old fired guns he brought from home into classroom ceiling
BOUNTIFUL, Utah — Police said two fast-acting Utah parents disarmed their 15-year-old son at a Utah junior high school Thursday after the teenager brought the family’s shotgun and handgun to school and fired a round into the ceiling of a classroom without injuring anyone.
Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross said the boy’s mother and father became concerned about their son Thursday morning. They went to Mueller Park Junior High in the northern Utah city of Bountiful when they noticed a handgun and shotgun were missing from their home. Ross said the parents confronted their son and disarmed him.
Student Dan Fowers, 15, said the teenager came into a classroom minutes after class began and fired one round from a shotgun into the ceiling before a woman grabbed the gun from the boy and told him to stop.
Fowers said the woman threw the gun on the ground and pulled the boy back into a hallway.
“It was really scary,” Fowers said. “The look on his face, it kind of looked like he wanted to do some damage.”
He said students in the classroom dove under their desks, as they’d been taught during lockdown drills, with some screaming and crying.
Bountiful Police Lt. Dave Edwards confirmed the shooting inside the classroom but said he did not yet know enough to confirm other details from Fowers’ account.
Police did not immediately release the teen’s identity. Ross would say only that the student was a 15-year-old white male. He did not have details about the parents’ specific concerns about their son, why the student brought the weapons to the school or what he intended.
Police had not been contacted before about the boy, Ross said.
As the parents intervened, a teacher called 911 and a police officer who happened to be down the street arrived and took custody of the student soon after, police said.
Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams had no immediate information about the student or whether the student had any history of trouble or incidents at the school.
Ross said the student was in custody Thursday but did not know if the student had been arrested on suspicion of any specific charges.
The school, about 11 miles north of Salt Lake City, remained on lockdown as more than 100 officers went room-by-room through the building to ensure it was safe.
Ross said no other student appears to have been involved.