A student was shot with a Taser at Brighton High School on Thursday after police say he tried to grab a school resource officer’s gun and threatened to “use it on everyone.”
The boy was supposedly at the school “trying to get back in” after he had previously been banned from the campus, said Cottonwood Heights Police Lt. Dan Bartlett. Then, when school staff said he couldn’t be there, he started yelling in the counseling office.
Bartlett said faculty at the school, which contracts with Cottonwood Heights police, called in their assigned school resource officer for help to escort the student off the property.
But when the officer showed up, Bartlett said, the student “rushed her, knocked her down, began choking her and biting her.” And he allegedly reached for her gun, saying he was going to shoot students and staff at the school.
This was at 8 a.m., just after students at Brighton had started their first classes on the fourth day of the new school year.
As the school resource officer was struggling on the ground, some parents who were in the building saw what was happening and started trying to pull the student off of her, Bartlett said.
The officer couldn’t reach her Taser, Bartlett added, and instructed one of the parents — none of which is related to the boy — to grab it and shoot it at the student. One father did.
With the student stunned, the officer was able to get up and put the boy in handcuffs, Bartlett said. He has since been checked into a detention center. The Salt Lake Tribune does not name minors accused of a crime, and the boy has not yet been charged.
Bartlett said it was “unorthodox” for the officer to ask a parent to use the Taser on the boy, but he said it was a “judgment call in a tough situation.”
“This is not something we teach,” Bartlett added.
The officer was examined at the hospital and treated for swelling in her neck from the choking. She has since been released.
The boy was also checked out for injuries. And Bartlett said the dad who fired the stun gun was “pretty shaken up,” too.
It’s uncommon for school resource officers to use force — or direct use of force — against students in Utah. And there have been few incidents where an officer has been severely injured by a student.
Canyons School District released a statement Thursday.
“We are grateful that those involved did not suffer serious injuries,” said district spokesman Jeff Haney. “While we are not releasing specifics about this isolated incident because of student privacy reasons, we want our community to know great measures are taken every day to keep our school campuses as safe as possible.”
