ST. GEORGE — A Texas man is in jail facing aggravated assault charges following an incident at a convenience store in Washington City where the suspect allegedly pulled a gun on several teens when they told him they had no drugs to give him.
On Wednesday, officers were dispatched to a brandishing call shortly after 3:30 p.m. involving a suspect who allegedly pointed a gun at a juvenile and “threatened to shoot him,” the officer noted in the probable cause statement filed in support of the arrest.
Officers arrived to learn the incident began at the Maverik on Hoodoo Way in Washington City, where a man reportedly approached a juvenile inside of the store and asked him for drugs. The teen was on a youth outing at the time, and four other juveniles who were also inside of the store were approached by the suspect who repeated the request, which is when the teens told the man they did not have any drugs to give him and left the store.
Once outside, the suspect, later identified as 31-year-old Jacob Lee Foster, of Hondo, Texas, approached one of the youths and “brandished a firearm and threatened to shoot him,” the officer recounted from the interview with witnesses at the scene. The incident was reported to the group leader who then called 911.
The caller described the firearm as a black semiautomatic handgun while speaking to emergency dispatch.
Meanwhile, Foster got into a white Chrysler 300 and drove away just as officers were pulling into the parking lot; however, an officer observed a Chrysler matching the description heading into the parking lot of the Black Bear Diner located nearby.
The officer followed the Chrysler toward the south end of the building and drew his duty weapon and ordered the driver to stop and show his hands. The driver was ordered out of the car and placed into custody by police.
Washington City Police Chief Jason Williams told St. George News that it wasn’t until after officers arrived at the scene and spoke to the witnesses that they were told Foster had pointed the gun at the four other youths in the group after they told them they had no drugs to give him.
During an interview, Foster allegedly admitted to asking the teens for drugs and also said he went to the trunk of his car to retrieve the firearm, but he denied ever pointing the gun at anyone.
While processing the vehicle, officers noticed a temporary registration tag covering the license plate on the Chrysler that was issued nearly 10 years ago, and upon further investigation, they discovered the temporary tag also listed a different VIN number than what was found on the vehicle.
When authorities found the registered owner of the vehicle, they called him from the scene and learned the Chrysler was stolen but that the owner was still in the process of reporting the theft to his local police department so it had not yet been entered into the system.
When confronted about the car, Foster allegedly told police his friend asked him to drive the car from Las Vegas to Denver, Colorado, where he was to deliver it to “another friend.”
He also “admitted he thought it was weird,” the officer wrote, but Foster said he was not aware it was stolen when he picked up and said he did not ask any questions.
On the front passenger’s seat of the car, officers found a handgun matching the one described by witnesses. Williams said that officers thought the suspect was reaching for the weapon earlier in his vehicle when they observed his right hand reaching for something just before he put both hands out the window.
The gun turned out to be a BB gun with “Glock-19” etched into the metal on the side of the gun, but for all intents and purposes, Williams said it “looked like a Glock semiautomatic firearm” that was sitting within arm’s reach of the suspect.
Officers also recovered two credit cards that belonged to the actual owner of the vehicle, as well as the owner’s driver’s license.
Foster was arrested and advised he would be facing multiple felony charges, the officer noted, being he was the sole occupant of the car and who was reportedly in possession of a stolen car, multiple financial cards and IDs that did not belong to him, along with the falsified registration tag and the brandishing offenses.
He was then transported to Purgatory Correctional Facility and booked into jail on second-degree felony theft of the vehicle, as well as five third-degree felony counts of aggravated assault – one for each of the individuals he allegedly pointed what appeared to be a firearm at.
He also faces one count of forgery and two counts of unlawful acquisition of a financial card, each a third-degree felony, as well as a misdemeanor count of possession of another’s identifying documents.
Ed. Note: A new Utah law generally prohibits the release of arrest booking photos until after a conviction is obtained.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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