BOUNTIFUL, Utah (AP) – A Utah mother and father who followed their son to school and pulled a shotgun from his hand after he fired a round into a classroom ceiling likely prevented bloodshed by acting quickly on their intuition and conversations with the boy after they noticed guns were missing from their home, police said Friday.
The parents arrived shortly after the boy entered the classroom Thursday in the northern Utah city of Bountiful and fired one round into the ceiling. No one was injured but the blast left a hole the size of a small plate, Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross said.
The boy also pointed the shotgun at his own neck, Ross said.
The boy didn’t say a word as a teacher and one of 26 students tried to talk him out of firing again, giving his parents a few extra seconds to arrive, Ross said. The mother took the gun out of his hand and the father pulled the boy out of the room and into a hallway, police said.
Police Lt. Dave Edwards said the father’s talk with his son before he left for school and the mother’s instinct that something was wrong motivated them to head to the campus after they discovered the handgun and shotgun were missing.