Jeremy Bell of Toronto, Canada, bought a LEGO kit that assembles into a realistic facsimile of a handgun. Naturally, it struck him as a good idea to bring it to work:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2301787 -- Thanks, Jeremy Barker! | Photo: Global TV
UPDATE 12/5/09: Jeremy Bell has blogged about the incident (via Hell in a Handbasket).
It was the end of the day so Mr. Bell and a few colleagues decided to wind down by playing a few rounds of the video game Modern Warfare 2 at the office before heading home. A little while later, sudden, intense yelling filled the office hallways.
"We originally thought there was some sort of domestic dispute out there ... that was until I clearly heard my name," said Mr. Bell.
"The guy sounded seriously angry and was instructing me to slowly come into the hall with my hands on my head."
It was Toronto's Emergency Task Force, more commonly known as the SWAT team, responding to calls of a man in an office with a gun.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2301787 -- Thanks, Jeremy Barker! | Photo: Global TV
UPDATE 12/5/09: Jeremy Bell has blogged about the incident (via Hell in a Handbasket).
And how did they know his name?
That's just asking for trouble.
Granted that there is little information given but deploying what was reported as nearly two dozen police officers, SWAT and enough cruisers to block off the surrounding streets included, plus EMTs and a chopper seems like a wasteful overreaction to a single report that doesn't seem to indicate eminent threat.
Both the news article and Bell's blog indicate that the call made to police just said that the person saw Bell sitting in his office with a gun on his desk and his door closed. Isn't some form of verification or further assessment of the danger appropriate. An example to me would be keeping the person making the report on the phone and sending a patrol unit or two by to carefully check things out while putting the tactical response units on alert.
And to be fair, if the guy was assembling the toy, from the neighbor's vantage point, it would look a bit suspect. A guy sitting alone in an office, fiddling with a handgun? If I saw something like that, I'd probably notify the authorities too; imagine if you ignored it and later learned the guy went on an office shooting spree?
@Juice: I agree with you. I find it understandable that he feels some embarrassment but his tone indicated to me that he feels responsibility, which seems absurd.
Why is a "third party company" making realistic gun kits? My point still stands. It's a dumb idea.