An airgun incident story with the police...

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Time-Bandit · #1 Post by **Time-Bandit** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 10:52 am

OK, about 9-10 years ago, when I was a young punk, a friend and I decided to go camping for a few days. My friend had bought a real-gun replica BB gun from Le Baron and brought it with him on the camping trip. I don't really remember shooting it or him shooting it during the camping trip, but in any case that's not important.

We had gone camping for the week-end, and it was uneventful, my friend being a real idiot, not knowing how to prepare for camping, and just being plain obnoxious.

In any case, we were leaving the campground and heading for dowtown Montreal (pretty big city in case you don't know). My buddy was driving a red convertible Mustang with the top down, and the idiot decides to pull out his gun in his car and just flash it around to people driving for about 10-15 seconds or so. During that time, I saw a taxi driver see him with a scared panicky look on his face.

He put back the gun in the glove compartment and we didn't think much of it. We were heading off to a restaurant since we were starving and hadn't eaten all day. Before leaving the car, I had a few knives on me, bear mace and another knife strapped to my leg. My friend looks at me and says: "Nah man, keep it on, it'll be fun!!!". I'm like, "No way man, I'm taking off all of the weapons.". So he decides to remove his weapons too, except for a small pocket knife that he had with a blade of about 3 inches or so.

We exit the car and start walking towards the restaurant. While walking to the restaurant we see two female cops walking our way with a scared look. So I'm thinking in my head: "Why the f* would they be look at us like that? Something is weird". As we cross them, I hear one of them say on her radio: "They're here". I really don't think much of it, and my friend even less, I don't think he has the faculty of thinking. In any case, we go to a nice trendy restaurant on Ste-Catherine.

We were there for about 5 minutes, looking at the menus, when 3-4 cops storm into the restaurant. I look at my friend and say: "Hmmm, wonder why the hell they're here for.". Little di d I know they were here for US!!! The cops run towards us, take us down, push our faces to the floor, handcuff us and bring us outside!

Woah! Outside, there were like 6-7 police cars blocking off the traffic with some more on the way. In my head, I'm like: "Man, these people have nothing to do...".

So, we have all of the people on Ste-Catherine looking at the show. As we speak, we're bad-as* criminals since 7 police cars are there for us!

The cops are searching us and yelling: "Where's the GUN! Where's the GUN!". So I quietly askl them, "The GUN??? You mean the BB gun???". So I tell my buddy to take out the gun and show it to them.

Man were they pissed. 5 cop cars left the scene, and we were left with 2. OK, I admit, what my friend was doing, brandishing a weapon in public, even though it was in his car was pure stupidity.
But do you really need 7 cop cars, 14 police officers, with more on the way to arrest 2 young punks???

Anyways, I could see on the cops faces that they were pissed and angry, so they started giving us tickets for owning and carrying illegal weapons. They gave a ticket to my friend for carrying a concealed knife and they gave me the same ticket. Problem was that I did not carry any weapons on me so I confronted the cop who wrote the ticket and told him: "I was not carrying any weapons, my knifes were inside my bag in the car, you're not allowed to give me a ticket like that". He looked at me pissed off, and then tore up the ticket. Phew! If I didn't say anything it would have costed me like $175 or so at the time.

So kids, please, when you take out your airguns and BB guns, be careful...

airgunfun · #2 Post by **airgunfun** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:04 am

You're lucky to be alive. Hope the guy isn't your friend anymore....a real liability in my opinion!!!!

Time-Bandit · #3 Post by **Time-Bandit** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:12 am

That's the same person (my friend) who appeared in the newspaper when he was 12 years old. He had an air rifle and was shooting it from the top of his building in downtown montreal (where his mother lived). Now I don't know the full story, but I did see a newspaper clipping that he had in his room as proof. He told me that the SWAT team came in (or whatever they are called here in Canada), television, helicopters, etc... They thought that it was some terrorist sniper shooting civilians.

I should one day go to the library and try to pull out the article out of of the newspaper archives.

Airgunfun: Lucky to be alive? Since when do cops shoot on unarmed citizens in plainsight? They did the right thing, they arrested us and then asked questions.

TCooper · #4 Post by **TCooper** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:17 am

People have been shot by the police for waving around a replica/clone airgun. It's not a smart thing to do.

Are 7 police cars needed to take care of a couple of kids? No, but I doubt the police knew what to expect. A "stand-off" in a public building, with firearms, is not an unheard of event. A citizen saw what they believed to be a firearm and it was possible for there to be more firearms. Is it wrong for the police to take safety precautions when firearms and citizen safety could be involved? Traffic must be stopped and something had to be done about the potential weapons and that requires officers. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute.

I'm not slamming you as a person but we have to be careful with anything that resembles a firearm.

Todd

airgunfun · #5 Post by **airgunfun** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:24 am

Actually, the two of you deserved a damned good beating by the cops....how flippin' stupid can you be??? Your buddy deserves it because he's an idiot...and you, well....guilt by association!!!!

#6 Post by **sniper** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:25 am

wow ....
yes, they don't full around when they hear this thing with guns.
Last year one of the school here, one kid just reported to the office that he was robbed by another kid with a gun, less than 10 min. ETF were there all over the school, tons of cops, eventhough they didn't find anything perhaps the guy with the gun already fled the scene or perhaps there was no gun but if they just hear gun ..... that's it .... hell break loose.

Time-Bandit · #7 Post by **Time-Bandit** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:30 am

airgunfun wrote:Actually, the two of you deserved a damned good beating by the cops....how flippin' stupid can you be??? Your buddy deserves it because he's an idiot...and you, well....guilt by association!!!!

Yeah, and you deserve a damn good beating by me for being an incompetent moderator who goes around insulting users of his forum instead of stirring up healthy conversation. Same type of justification right?

Do you really think that insulting me and telling me that cops should have beaten me is really going to get any type of smart answer from me? Grow up.

airgunfun · #8 Post by **airgunfun** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:33 am

OK...now I understand where you're coming from.....

Jan · #9 Post by **Jan** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 11:56 am

No offence but yeah your friend sounds like he was a real idiot. Doesn't sounds like you were in the wrong at all though. But man, flashing something that looks like a real gun around while driving even... oh brother.

killercrow · #10 Post by **killercrow** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 12:32 pm

see, if youze guys did that in the good old usa, youd probly be dead... but canada, we're pretty safe here

i could see the cops being a little less compliant if you guys looked all sketched out... like crack heads or something...

Time-Bandit · #11 Post by **Time-Bandit** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:01 pm

killercrow wrote:see, if youze guys did that in the good old usa, youd probly be dead... but canada, we're pretty safe here i could see the cops being a little less compliant if you guys looked all sketched out... like crack heads or something...

Yeah, most likely... people are much more tense and living in fear compared to Canada. If I had pulled out a BB gun in public and they shot me, they'd say: "He was a terrorist" and no one would think twice. Check out the Bowling for Columbine documentary to get an idea about the differences in mentality between Canada and USA. I'm so glad to be a Canadian.

In any case, I wrote this in response to the guy who went shooting in private property and had a run in with the cops. Wouldn't want anyone to get hurt or even get in trouble because they brandished their gun in public at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I wasn't expecting people to insult me, tell me I should have been beat up and shot at. You guys sure have a lot of compassion, and am glad that our society is not run by people like you. We'd all be tormented and live in a place where the one with the biggest gun makes the law.

KILLER-B · #12 Post by **KILLER-B** » Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:14 pm

Time-Bandit wrote:
killercrow wrote:see, if youze guys did that in the good old usa, youd probly be dead... but canada, we're pretty safe here i could see the cops being a little less compliant if you guys looked all sketched out... like crack heads or something...
Yeah, most likely... people are much more tense and living in fear compared to Canada. If I had pulled out a BB gun in public and they shot me, they'd say: "He was a terrorist" and no one would think twice. Check out the Bowling for Columbine documentary to get an idea about the differences in mentality between Canada and USA. I'm so glad to be a Canadian.

In any case, I wrote this in response to the guy who went shooting in private property and had a run in with the cops. Wouldn't anyone to get hurt or even get in trouble because they brandished their gun in public at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I wasn't expecting people to insult me, tell me I should have been beat up and shot at. You guys sure have a lot of compassion, and am glad that our society is not run by people like you. We'd all be tormented and live in a place where the one with the biggest gun makes the law.

There was a guy just the other day in the news here in Oregon that was naked with no weapon running down the street drunk and yelling, and the police shot and killed him. Cause they said they told him to stop and he wouldn't.

KB

Tailgunner · #13 Post by **Tailgunner** » Sun Oct 30, 2005 7:21 pm

Airgunfun: Lucky to be alive? Since when do cops shoot on unarmed citizens in plainsight? They did the right thing, they arrested us and then asked questions.

Since when can the cops read your minds and determine that you WEREN'T armed with the gun that your buddy was waving around..... the gun that they HAVE to assume is real? Why in the world WOULDN'T you expect them to react in force to the threat of a gun (and, yes, it WAS a threat - think about it). It actually sounds like you're blaming the police for doing their job - exactly the way they're supposed to.

All it would take was 'stupid buddy', or you, to reach into his/your clothing when confronted.........read: 'bang - you're dead'. From the tone of your comments you still aren't taking this situation as seriously as you should. Or, maybe you are and it just isn't coming across in this medium...... in which case I appologize.

Joseph · #14 Post by **Joseph** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:00 am

since most toy guns (rubber dart, cap guns, etc..) are required to have bright neon tips so cops dont acidently kill ten year old kids waving toy guns (which has happened btw), if u were to put neon tape around the tip of your gun perhaps if somebody/the cops saw it they wouldnt react so hastily. maybe they should make signs that say: "NOT A REAL GUN"