Utah man punches children in the head for riding noisy bikes, fires three shots at their father for recording the incident
MILLCREEK, UTAH: A man had an hours-long standoff with a SWAT team after he allegedly hit two children in the face and fired three rounds at their father.
The Unified Police Department responded to an urgent call in the Millcreek area around 3.10 pm on Sunday, October 13, KSL TV reports. A surveillance camera caught the entire incident on camera.
In the video, nine-year-old Ryder and six-year-old Gavin were seen riding their dirt bikes up a hill on Troy Way.
An incensed Richard Lindem is then seen running into the middle of the road and flagging the children down. Lindem approach Ryder before he smacks him across the face. The 61-year-old then sets his eyes on Gavin and punches the kid several times in the head.
39-year-old Chris Ollerton, their father, was outside waxing his car at that moment and quickly noticed the attack.
Speaking to KSL TV, he recounted how he rushed to protect his two sons. "I saw this man pull back and punch my six-year-old son. I wanted to beat the crap out of him," Ollerton said. "When I was heading towards him, I had full intentions of tackling the guy and smashing his head into the street. I had to think of my kids’ safety."
As Ollerton raced towards the scene to confront Lindem, the latter suddenly pulls out a gun from his back pocket and points it at Ollerton right in front of his children.
"I just turned to my boys; 'Just run, hurry, run home, run in the house, lock the door, and call 911'," Ollerton said. "I was just yelling, 'Dude, it’s not worth it, nobody needs to die, nobody needs to go to prison. It’s not worth it.' Just trying to diffuse the situation."
According to Ollerton, Lindem was yelling that the children's bikes were "destroying the neighborhood."
Eventually, the father somehow managed to calm the attacker down and convinced him to go home.
However, when Ollerton pulled out his cellphone to record the situation for police, Lindem was enraged. He then proceeded to shoot at the embattled father three times.
"He pointed it right at me when he took the shot. He intended to hit me," Ollerton recalled. "At this point, I’m like 'holy crap' so I started to run backward but I’m trying to keep an eye while I’m running backward to take cover and he fired two more shots."
"The third one... I swear it couldn’t have been more than a foot from my head. I heard it whiz past my head," he added.
Fortunately, no one was hurt.
After firing the shots, Lindem ran inside his home before the cops arrived at the scene.
Local police were forced to summon a SWAT team after their attempted to remove Lindem from his home failed.
A gunshot was heard from inside the home as SWAT approached the scene.
The standoff between Lindem and the authorities lasted more than five hours before he ultimately gave himself up without incident.
Lindem faces charges of child abuse, aggravated assault, felony discharge of a firearm and reckless endangerment and he was "heavily intoxicated" when officers found him.