MORGAN HILL
– Reaction to Monday’s arrest of four teen-age boys for
brandishing real-looking assault rifles and handguns has been
simple.
MORGAN HILL – Reaction to Monday’s arrest of four teen-age boys for brandishing real-looking assault rifles and handguns has been simple.
“Stupid” is the word heard most often, followed by, “what were their parents thinking?”
Morgan Hill Police Interim Chief Bruce Cumming has different thoughts about what the boys called “playing commando.” His officers came within a fraction of a second of shooting the boys because they appeared to be carrying lethal weapons and threatening 7- and 8-year-old kids on a baseball field. Police said the boys, 13- to 16-years-old, and their parents described the incident as “no big deal.”
“I’m just so angry,” Cumming said.
He isn’t alone.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy was visibly upset when asked about parents who thought it was no big deal for their sons to play with the guns in public after removing the orange “This Is Not A Real Gun” markers.
“It is just ridiculous that any parent would allow a child to run such a risk,” Kennedy said. “It’s craziness and starts kids on the wrong path, thinking that going out and scaring people is fun.”
He said he would ask the council to consider a city ordinance controlling minors and “replica” guns. It is already against a federal law to remove or paint over the federally mandated orange tip on the guns’ barrels.
The incident occurred Monday afternoon when police received several panicked calls to 9-1-1 reporting four males carrying assault rifles and wearing masks were seen at Jackson School, moving toward the adjacent park’s baseball fields.
When approached by police and warned to lay down their weapons the boys refused and scattered for cover toward the fields at Jackson Park. The park is located on Fountain Oaks Drive east of Hill Road where Pinto baseball teams were preparing for a game.
If Officer Rick Vestal hadn’t noticed a white handle on one gun and decided the weapons were replicas and not the real thing, the day could have ended tragically, police said.
Police Lt. Joe Sampson said Monday after the boys were cited and released to their parents that officers seldom recover from shooting someone, especially if it was a mistake and it was a child.
While most people who contacted The Morgan Hill Times after reading Tuesday’s story on the boys and their guns understood the dilemma the boys’ actions put the police in, others said they thought the police and the adults who called them overreacted.
Both Cumming and Sampson said they could not stress enough that the point was not that the boys were just playing but that the police had no way of knowing that. Helping police out in situations like this is why federal law requires the orange marks on the realistic-looking weapons. The boys did everything to make the police think they were “bad guys.”
Sampson said his officers’ first responsibility was simple: protect the children.
“If a person has a gun that looks like a real firearm and brandishes it or points it at police or others, they run the risk of being shot,” Sampson said. “It’s a split-second decision.”
If a weapon looks real and the person holding it acts in a threatening manner, police are going to react, Sampson said. On Monday, everyone was lucky.
Sampson said the school district would not be notified of the boys’ names because the incident did not occur during school hours or on school property.
Superintendent of Schools Carolyn McKennan had nothing but praise for the police department’s cool heads.
“Chief Cumming called me at 6 p.m. (less than an hour after the incident ended) with the news,” McKennan said. “They were so responsive, I’m grateful that they put our children’s safety first.”
She said school principals have collected toy guns from elementary school students for years but, to her knowledge, have never confiscated these replica guns.
