Three teens, two 16 and another 17, were arrested at gunpoint
for using a replica gun while making a film on a residential
street. One of the 16-year-olds was arrested in April following an
similar incident at Jackson Elementary School.
Morgan Hill – Three teens, two 16 and another 17, were arrested at gunpoint for using a replica gun while making a film on a residential street. One of the 16-year-olds was arrested in April following an similar incident at Jackson Elementary School.
Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming said Friday the three teens, who attend Live Oak High School, were videotaping a re-creation of the television show “COPS” on Ponderosa Court in west Morgan Hill about 8pm Wednesday, when a neighbor saw one of the teens pull another from a vehicle and hold what the neighbor thought was a handgun to his head.
The third teen was filming the events.
Officers made what is called a “high-risk stop,” said Cumming, drawing their weapons and ordering the teens to lie on the ground. Guns were kept trained on them as officers searched the teens and the vehicle.
A replica gun, a classic Airsoft, completely painted to resemble an Israeli Desert Eagle – a .357 magnum semi-automatic – was recovered by officers during the search, as well as baggies containing flour, which Cumming said were apparently used as props representing drugs for the “show” the teens were filming.
Officers also confiscated the videotape.
Last April, not far from the scene of Monday’s incident, one of the 16-year-olds was arrested after an incident at Jackson Elementary School. After school hours, the teen and three others were spotted by a parent picking up her child from an after-school program. The boys, masked and wearing dark clothing, were carrying real-looking assault rifles and handguns.
When approached by police and ordered to lay down their weapons, the boys refused and scattered for cover toward the fields at adjacent Jackson Park. The park is located on Fountain Oaks Drive east of Hill Road where several baseball teams were preparing for a game.
Officer Rick Vestal saw a white handle on one gun and decided the weapons were replicas and not the real thing.
Otherwise, the day could have ended tragically, police said at the time.
All four boys were taken into custody without further incident, cited for possession of replica firearms and for felony possession of replica firearms on school grounds. They were released to their parents at the station; the guns were confiscated.
This time, the teens could be charged with both a municipal code violation as well as a penal code violation because a state law “virtually identical to our ordinance (in Morgan Hill),” Cumming said, went into effect Sept. 30.
The teens were admonished, cited and released to their parents Wednesday night, Cumming said.
Cpl. Michael Brookman said he talked to the parents, including the father of the boy involved in the Jackson School incident last April where he also came close to being shot by police.
“Their initial reaction was concern for their sons,” he said. “But I also explained that we respond to the threat as we see it. It is easier to de-escalate when we go in than to escalate.”
In April, the father had asked for police to return the confiscated replicas. Brookman said he doubts the father will ask this time.
“I think the parents have learned a lesson,” he said. “One mother was just furious with her son.”
A report on the incident will be forward to the juvenile probation department, Cumming said, and the department will decide whether to file formal charges against the teens.
