Document text
Toy guns almost lead to a real-life disaster By Jessica Smith of the Mail Tribune It was nothing more than a case of boys being boys, but two Central Point youths have learned how games can sometimes turn deadly. The boys, ages 12 and 13, were playing with toy guns outside Genesis Recovery about 9:30 p.m. Friday when police officers and a private security agent drew their weapons and told the kids to drop to the ground. "If they had hesitated another second (before complying) they could have been shot," said Kent Gottfried, owner of Jackson County Protection. Gottfried and police were responding to a report from Genesis of a man with a gun on the Second Street property. When Gottfried and five officers arrived, two men appeared to be running toward them with weapons. "All I could see was that the first one (boy) had a pistol in his hand and he was waving it around and then I drew down," Gottfried said. "He had what looked like a real gun and he could have been killed." Central Point Sgt. Chuck Newell, one of the responding officers, said poor lighting made it difficult to tell the "gunmen" were merely boys with toys. And the plastic guns looked very real from a distance, Newell said. "There's a real problem with some of the toy guns," Newell said, adding that pellet, BB and dart guns are often made to mimic actual weapons. Officers gave the boys a "severe" talking to about appropriate play with toy guns before they were cited for trespass and released to their parents, Newell said. He added that parents are urged to supervise children playing with guns that appear real. "This could have been a real tragedy," Newell said. "We don't know with all the weapons out there who is a bad guy. We take at face value what we're seeing." Newell and Gottfried said they were shaken up by Friday's incident, but thankful that no harm was done. "I'm just glad nothing happened," Gottfried said. "Half of me was upset at what could have happened and the other half of me was mad that these kids were running around at night where they shouldn't be." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA