WEST JORDAN — West Jordan police arrested a man over the weekend after his two young daughters were found wandering by themselves.

Curtis Limbaugh, 61, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of two counts of child abandonment, assaulting an officer, spitting on an officer and interfering with an arrest.

On Sunday, police were called to the area of 7000 South and Bangerter Highway after other shoppers and motorists called police to report “two juvenile females who appeared to be scared walking alone in Jordan Landing,” according to a Salt Lake County Jail booking affidavit.

An officer found the girls, ages 8 and 9, who told them “their dad got mad at them and said he would not drive them back to their mother’s house” and would not allow them to call her, the affidavit states. The girls walked out of the hotel room where their dad, Limbaugh, was staying and he made no attempt to stop them, said West Jordan Police Sgt. JC Holt.

The girls were found about four to five blocks away from the hotel, he said.

When officers went to the hotel to talk to Limbaugh, he was confrontational with them, Holt said.

“He yelled at me and told me that he didn’t know” where his daughters were, the arresting officer wrote in the affidavit.

The officer explained the girls were safe, but that police “needed to speak to him about why he did not stop them from leaving or provide them with safekeeping and letting them leave,” the affidavit states.

Limbaugh responded by stating “‘If they’re safe then I am done talking to you’ and tried slamming the door on myself and another officer,” according to the affidavit.

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Officers entered the hotel room to continue speaking with Limbaugh but “he continued showing signs of aggression toward ... and then started walking away as if to grab something from inside of a nearby nightstand,” the affidavit states.

One officer then used pepper spray on Limbaugh who began swinging his arms at the officers, according to the affidavit. After placing him in handcuffs, Limbaugh spit into an officers mouth, the affidavit states.

“After placing him into a secured ‘wrap’ restraint he kept trying to kick myself and (the other officer),” according to the affidavit.

Limbaugh then kicked an officer’s legs and continued to give verbal threats, the affidavit states.

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