Salt Lake father faces charges after 4th grader brought his gun to school
Aug 16, 2023, 3:39 PM
FILE - Jefferson County Public Schools buses packed with students make their way through the Detrick Bus Compound on the first day of school, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023, in Louisville, Ky. AlphaRoute, the company behind a disastrous change to a Kentucky city's school bus routes that resulted in more than a week of canceled classes, had similar problems in two cities in neighboring Ohio last year. (Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal via AP, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(Jeff Faughender/Courier Journal via AP, File)
SALT LAKE CITY — The father of a fourth grade student who brought a gun to school is now facing criminal charges after investigators determined that he also shouldn’t have had a gun.
Timothy Paula Taumua, Jr., 29, was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with possession of a gun by a restricted person, a second-degree felony, and providing a handgun to a minor, a class B misdemeanor.
On April 17, Salt Lake police were called to North Star Elementary, 1545 N. Morton Drive, on a report that a fourth grade student had brought a handgun to school and had shown it to other students.
The boy told police that he “found the gun on the side of his parents’ bed and put it in his backpack” and that he had seen his father carrying it around for the past month-and-a-half, according to charging documents.
Another family member told police the gun was believed to be in a lockbox and they didn’t know the boy had taken it.
Prosecutors say Taumua was convicted of aggravated assault in 2020, and thus was not allowed to possess a firearm. Taumua was also previously convicted of possession of a gun by a restricted person in 2019, and attempted possession of a gun by a restricted person in 2017, according to court records.
