CHEYENNE — A car full of teenagers trying to shoot each other with realistic-looking toy guns touched off a heavy police response Tuesday evening.
The teens were playing a game with toy Orbeez guns that resemble AR-15-style automatic rifles and which shoot soft gel pellets. The toys were painted black to appear even more realistic, according to the Cheyenne Police Department.
The game they were playing is similar to a growing trend of teens playing “Senior Assassin,” a real-life first-person shooter-style competition that picks up in April and May as high school graduations near.
Law enforcement agencies around the country have issued warnings about the game.
While it’s not clear if the Cheyenne teens were participating in a Senior Assassin session at about 6 p.m. Tuesday, it was similar, said Alexandra Farkas-Schulz, public information officer for the Cheyenne Police Department.
“It’s unknown if the teens were playing that game, but it appeared to be similar,” she said. “One teen thought they were shooting at another one of their friends.
“The toys simulated real firearms and were painted black. The individual who reported the shots fired thought he was being shot at. It’s very dangerous.
“They look like real rifles, but they have little gel pellets loaded into them.”
Shots Fired
When one of the projectiles from an Orbeez gun hit someone’s car near Trampoline Park in Cheyenne, that person thought real bullets were flying, Farkas-Schulz said. The teens then got into a car and left.
A report of shots fired isn’t a game, and police responded in force to the area.
“It caused a very large law enforcement presence,” Farkas-Schulz said. “There was some damage to a truck that was shot, but it was not believed to be a life-threatening type of situation.”
Because of the quick response, the teens’ white Nissan was quickly found and stopped at a nearby convenience store.
Because of what officers perceived as the potential for the teens to be armed, they conducted what Farkas-Schulz called a “high-risk” stop of their vehicle.
They didn’t resist, and two teens in possession of the toy guns were cited, she said.
That nobody was hurt is fortunate, she said, adding the teens are lucky they weren’t shot by either law enforcement or a passerby who was armed themselves.
“It’s definitely easy to get caught up in the moment, especially if you’re around your friends, but there can be some pretty serious consequences,” she said. “Fortunately, this time nobody was injured or harmed.”
Police Respond ‘As If’ It’s Real
Dave Patterson, a retired 31-year law enforcement officer living in Park County, agrees that these teens are lucky that nobody was hurt, and that realistic games with toy guns are dangerous in general.
When police get reports of people with guns or shots fired, “it’s always the same — you have to respond as if it’s real,” said Patterson, who teaches criminal justice at Northwest College and is a certified trainer for tactical operations.
“They always have to respond ‘as if,’ meaning ‘as if’ it’s real,” he said. “That’s how they are dealt with by police, because you really can’t just ho-hum it.
“Luckily, I think most people in Wyoming understand that, because everybody has guns.”
The toy guns available today are far different from when Patterson was a kid, he said.
“When I grew up, we played Army all the time,” he said. “But these days are different, and people just have to realize that can they do it? Yeah. But you have to be smart about it. There are plenty of places you can play paintball or go do some of the simulated stuff indoors.”
That’s because the general public may not respond with the same training as law enforcement, “and they may be more apt to shoot sooner,” Patterson said.
That’s one of the reasons why the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office on Colorado’s Front Range put out a warning about Senior Assassin months ago, said Deborah Takahara, a spokeswoman for the agency.
“We’re just asking people to use common sense, because the can be mistaken for real weapons,” she told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday. “We’ve had people call in someone with a weapon when it was someone playing this game.”
She said a heavy police response also can be frightening and unsettling for the young people playing those games.
“That can be scary for the kids who think they’re just playing a game,” she said. “With water guns or Nerf guns, that’s pretty clear what those are,” but no those made to look real.
Farkas-Schulz said the message from Tuesday’s incident is to be aware that while those playing know they’re in a game, the general public around them may not.
“For the gamers who are doing this stuff, they need to know this is how the response is going to be,” she said. And when police show up, “they need to immediately comply.”
“Running around with toy guns that look real can result in real-world consequences,” the CPD adds in its report about the incident. “Luckily, no one was hurt this time.”
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
