Man reportedly threatens teens with gun after homecoming dance proposal goes wrong

TETON – A 55-year-old man is behind bars after he allegedly threatened a group of teens with a gun after they tried to ask a girl to a dance at her home.

Daniel Johnson is charged with four counts of felony aggravated assault and one count of second-degree kidnapping.

A Fremont County Sheriff’s deputy was patrolling Saturday when dispatchers contacted him around midnight. He was told about nine teenage boys had “dropped something off at a residence in Teton when they were confronted by an adult male.”

The boys reportedly told dispatch the man had a gun and pointed it at them while threatening them.

The deputy contacted one of the teenage boys who said he and his friends were asking a girl to homecoming so they had put things on her doorstep. The boy said they banged on the door and ran back to their cars. Four boys were in one car and five friends were in another.

The boy said he and his three friends drove away and noticed his friends were not following them.

They turned around to see what happened and said they saw “an older man approximately 60-70 years old had their friend at gunpoint telling him to get out of the car.”

The deputy contacted another boy over the phone, who said the man had pointed the gun at him and pushed it into his chest.

This teen said when they were leaving after knocking on the door, he “heard a noise similar to someone running through gravel from the open backseat driver’s side window.”

He told the deputy he looked to his left and saw an “old man with a gun.” The man reportedly put the gun up to the car window and said “Get the F out the car,” according to court documents.

The teen said he opened the door to get out, and the man “pulled him out of the vehicle by his shirt collar and began to twist his arm” before putting the gun to his chest and “yelling a bunch of different things.”

The teen later said in a written statement, “I immediately put both my hands up in the air, and he kept yelling at us saying things like: you mother f****** want to die, you motherf****** don’t know who you’re messing with.”

The teen also wrote, “the man had put the gun to my chest and was pointing it at me for most of the time.”

According to court documents, the teen said the man wouldn’t let him talk and was grabbing his right hand and twisting it while pointing the gun at his chest. At least one other time, he reportedly pointed the gun at the rest of the teens.

The teen said he tried explaining what they were doing and who they were, but the man said he “knew what they were doing” and kept trying to twist the teen’s right hand behind his back.

The deputy asked for a gun description, and the boy said it was a pistol.

When asked for a description of the man, the teen said he was an older male with a gray ponytail and “long darkish gray beard,” approximately 5’9 or 5’10.

The deputy also talked to multiple other teens in the car who told the same story.

According to one teen, the man stated, “This is my town, why are you here?”

One of the teens was able to record part of the argument and send it to the deputy. In the police record, it says the deputy heard a man say, “Do you little motherf****** understand that?”

The officer also saw a gun in the man’s hand in the video.

Later that day, units from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, Madison County Sheriff’s Office, and the Rexburg Police Department responded to the house where they believed the man lived. Because the man was potentially armed and violent, law enforcement surrounded the house and called him outside, according to court documents.

After surrounding the house and calling out for the man on the police car PA system, court records say a woman came out the front door. Officers spoke with her and learned that at least two men were still inside.

Officers had the woman go inside and have the men come out with their hands up. Soon, two men came out of the house, one matching the description.

Johnson was then identified by police and handcuffed. According to police reports, Johnson began “making excited utterances about knowing why (police) were there.”

Deputies said Johnson was intoxicated, had slurred speech and his eyes were “glossy bloodshot.”

During an interview with deputies, Johnson reportedly said he was outside around 11:15 p.m. when he saw two cars spinning around in his driveway before going to a house near the corner.

He said he saw some people “ram” the front door of the home and thought it was a home invasion.

Johnson says he “went running over” and “didn’t know it was a bunch of d*** kids until I was on top of them.”

He told the deputy he “told them to ‘stay the f*** out of the neighborhood'” and that he had a gun.

Johnson also admitted that the teens told him what they were doing, but again said he saw them “ramming the door.”

The deputy retrieved Johnson’s gun from his truck with his permission and found an “opened Coors Lite can of beer” in the cup holder.

After checking to see if the gun was loaded, another deputy found that the weapon did not have a bullet in the chamber.

Johnson was taken to the Fremont County Jail, where he was interviewed a second time. He initially denied grabbing one of the teens or pointing the gun at anyone but said he was “b******* at them.” He also said the teens were “scared as hell of me” and told them to “get the f*** out of this neighborhood.”

He later admitted to pulling a teen away from the truck and twisting his arm. He also admitted to consuming alcoholic beverages that night and said that if it had been a DUI traffic stop, he “most likely would be over the legal limit.”

He told deputies he pointed the gun at the teens and into a boy’s chest “once or twice.”

Later, the deputy received written statements from all of the victims. One victim noted that he “legitimately thought that I was gonna watch him (his friend) die” and that Johnson was “yelling stuff like ‘Do you not know what type of f***** man I am?”

The deputy also interviewed the mother of the girl the teens had gone to ask to the homecoming dance. She said she heard a “loud bang” and looked out the window, where she saw “a group of boys and a man and gun.”

The woman said she heard him say “motherf******.”

A neighbor was also interviewed who said he heard “yelling and screaming” and “saw someone with their hands up.” The neighbor also said that Johnson has been his neighbor for 4-5 years and would “keep an eye out or watch their house.”

Johnson was arrested and booked into the Fremont County Jail with a bond of $100,000. The bond was lowered to $40,000 on Monday, and he was sent to pre-trial services.

Johnson is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 9. If convicted, he could face up to 45 years in prison.

Though Johnson has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.