Cops blew this out of proportion just a little!

Talk about trigger happy! Last week I was at Moms’ swimming with the kids. My brother walks in the back yard with what looked like a shot gun. I told him to put it away; I didn’t want it around the kids. He says “it’s just a bee bee gun” (what do I know). I told him I don’t care I don’t want my kids around it, so he took it in the house. About 15 min later there was a cop in the neighbor’s yard (behind a large tree) yelling for us to get out of the pool and go over to him. So we did. They told us to hide behind the neighbor’s house. At this state I was really confused; of course they were ignoring our questions. I saw about five cops with machine guns walking around frantically. I finally got the attention of one of them. Told them the story with my brother and the bee bee gun. I was scared to death they were going to shoot him up over a bee bee gun. They blocked off three roads (2 major roads). Had six different police departments there, swat, the mayor, news cameras, it was absolutely ridiculous. They had my Moms house surrounded for four hours. We were a half a block away sitting in someone’s yard with swim cloths and no shoes (luckily I grabbed a shirt lol!). Oh and by the way my brother had left between the time someone called the police and the time that the cops got there (someone saw my brother walked into my Moms house with a “double barreled shot gun” (bee bee gun!). We had told the cops that “if his pick up is not in the driveway then he’s not there.” My Mom was so upset she looked like she was going to have a heart attack, she was beat red and her lips were white. We didn’t know for sure if he was in the house or not. We thought for sure they were going to kill him. There were two very loud bangs, we thought for sure they killed him, I never jumped up so fast in my life. They blew my Moms side door down with what looked like a bazooka, tour the house apart, broke an antique phone (the kind you wind up), and several bedroom doors. My brother was not home, and he was never charged with anything. I really didn’t understand the whole entire thing. My Mom lives in a very quiet town, nothing ever happens there. The only thing I can think of is that they used this opportunity to run a drill.

To top it off I had my sons friend with us that day, I just wanted to crawl under a rock.

If you actually made it through this whole story thanks for hanging in there! If anyone could tell me if they have the right to do this? Any cops reading this if you could give me some insight! Can anyone call anonymously and totally turn your world upside down. If that’s the case, it’s pretty messed up, that if someone is pissed off at you they can do this to you. Now of course everyone now is laughing about this, but if someone got hurt, if God forbid they killed my brother, or if my Mother had a heart attack, I don’t know how I would react.

im just.. wow..

I dont even know what to say

these toys are replicas of real guns and can be used to scare ppl in real robberys , so yes maybe the police did over react should of talked to you more but

with so much gun and knife crime going on in these times not just in us in uk as well

"Just a little"?? WOW!!! Seems to me that you could sue them for damages.

Maybe because your town is small and nothing ever happens is why they reacted like they did. Maybe they've been watching too much TV in all their spare time and were hoping for some action. They should have listened to you before they went off like skyrockets!

And... don't your neighbors know what your brother looks like? GEEEEZ!

I'd be raising some cain if I was you.

Yes they gave a discription, I told the cops that was my brother and it's just a bee bee gun. One of my Mom's neighbors said they heard two things that the cops said that disturbed him...

1. We know he's not home (before they blew the door down).

2. When is the media going to get here

This is just hear say, but I don't think he would lie about it. My Mom's neighbors weren't aloud to leave their house for hours and saw everything they were doing.

My Mom would never sue anyone, she's just happy no one got hurt.

she needs to sue, or at the very least have an attorney call and demand they pay damages. and the neighbor telling you is hearsay, but it would still count if he would testify in court.

lost

What a frightening experience for your family! I am so sorry all of you had to go through this. Perhaps the county and/or state would pay for damages. Its a good thing that nobody was physically hurt. Who's to know what your neighbor said on the 911 call.. guns are a very very scary thing in this world.

Take care,

Dee

All I can say is Wow!! I'm so glad that nobody was hurt. I can kind of understand the cops' initial reaction -- if someone reported someone walking around with a shot gun in my neighbourhood, I'd want the full SWAT team response. (And in my neighbourhood it's a real possibility) But after being told that it was your brother and that it was a bb gun, their response to take down the house was definitely overkill in my opnion. I'd at least talk to a lawyer about seeing if you can get the department to pay for the damage to your house.

--splitimage

They were told by me, I asked if I could go get him, that he probably fell asleep. When my Mom got there, she begged and pleaded with them to let her in her own house, they wouldn't let her. I think there was something behind the whole thing. To do all that and no one was charged with anything (not that I'm complaining). But I would say the town spent a lot of money that day and for what? I told them it was a bb gun and their response was "we don't know that".

What was priceless and I wish I took a picture was when this big bad swat guy carried my 3 year old daughter over to the end of the block. You see this huge guy dressed in black with all his armor carrying a little girl all dressed in pink, it was cute. Maybe I'm weird for thinking so.

What an awful experience. Is it possible that your brother was lying about it being a bee bee gun? Could there have been a robbery somewhere in the area that had them on the alert?

As awful as that was, imagine if you were held hostage and the police didn't come?

No it was a bb gun. There was nothing going on that day (nothing ever happens in this town (very snobby town)). My brother wasn't charged with anything plus he wasn't home. If there were any hostages they would have been dead before they got to them. They took four hours to come to the decision to go into the house.

I hate to doubt authority, I really do, my husband is ex-military, so is my uncle I have another uncle who is a retired detective and a cousin who is a cop in GA and several other cop friends. I've never even got a speeding ticket in my life, I am not a cop hater in the least bit. And they still have my utmost respect, I do appreciate what they do. I just think they went a little overboard or could have taken different measures. I hated seeing my Mom in that state, I think that's what bothered me the most, that my Mom was so upset, she was just crying to be able to talk to her son and it really ripped my heart out. If they came to my house today, I would still listen to what they were telling me to do.

So sorry your family had to go through that...what does your brother say now? Is he going to get rid of the bb gun?

No, it was my late fathers bb gun. He just won't take it out any more (he'll keep in a case). I'm not sure what the law is with having it on our own property though. All guns have to be in a case when traveling. I just wonder if that neighbor feels like an *****. My brother feels like he's the heel of the family (he has some emotional issues). He said he was going to move because he was an embarrassment to the family, but we talked him out of it.

Wow, that is a little overkill, I don't know what to say, but if you want to actually ask some police officers about it there is a website called officer.com, it has a section where you can ask police officers questions and they usually get alot of questions about things like this.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that, I'm glad noone got hurt.

Jeez, all this over a BB gun?
I'd be freaking out if SWAT came to my house.

I feel bad for your brother...hope he gets over it okay!

Yeah we were freaking out. The news helicopters and people taking pictures of us were pissing me off. You are going through this awful situations and there has to be these A holes trying to take pictures of you. I had my kids hiding behind an ambulance and under a tree so no one could get a shot of them.

Another strange thing they did was leave cards in the house. They were the size of playing cards that had a picture of an ace of spades on it and it said "say no to drugs" on it and "swat squad 4" and some other stuff. They left three of them hidden throughout the house (hidden behind angel nick-nacks).