My local paper just published the following story today.
By Jennifer Feinberg
The Progress
jfeinberg@theprogress.com
Feb 17 2006
High-risk takedown precautions went into effect after an off-duty cop saw a what looked like a handgun being loaded in a vehicle.
In the end, no arrests were made, but police seized a type of BB gun, a slingshot, a container of 6 mm pellets from two men travelling in a white Ford Explorer.
The incident started Wednesday afternoon near Vedder and Stephenson Roads and ended at Peach Road.
An off-duty RCMP officer called for assistance after he witnessed one of the two men inserting a magazine into what appeared to be a handgun, reports Const. Steve Hiscoe. The officer followed the suspects and was met at the Peach Road site by other officers.
The incident became a “high-risk” vehicle stop because the occupants were believed to be armed, he explains.
On-duty officers approached the vehicle with their pistols drawn as per their training, says Hiscoe.
“It’s done this way for safety reasons, since in this case there was information to suggest one of the occupants was armed with a loaded firearm,” he says.
Two Chilliwack men were detained, questioned and released by RCMP. The driver was 20 years old and his passenger was 19.
“The question became what were they doing with the loaded soft air gun. A lot of these handguns look like the real thing from a distance or close up,” Hiscoe says. “If it was any other colour but orange, it would be hard to say if it was a toy, or if it was real.”
The seized airsoft gun was an Airstrike 240 Soft Air Gun with an orange magazine, orange grip and see-through components. The term ‘airsoft’ is used interchangeably to refer either to a game played with military style firearms and tactics, or the replica metal or plastic firearms that use 6 mm or 8 mm projectiles.