Three teens, two 16 and another 17, were arrested at about 8pm
Wednesday 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.
Three teens, two 16 and another 17, were arrested at about 8pm Wednesday 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 east Morgan Hill, 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 commanding the teens to lie on the ground. Guns were kept trained on them as they searched.
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. 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.
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.
A report on the incident will be forward to the juvenile probation department.
