Armed police confronted a 10-year-old boy at his Cradley Heath home who had been showing his friend a plastic toy gun.
First officers, two armed with machine guns, went round the back of the house in Harcourt Way to speak to Brodie-Cian who was showing off his new 18-inch long black plastic gun to a friend.
More officers, some handling dogs, followed them round the back of the house to greet the boy’s horrified mother Gail Pearsall.
The Temple Meadow school pupil has now been banned from taking the £10 gun, bought from a Dudley market stall, out the front of the house as it causes too much alarm.
Ms Pearsall said: “I suddenly saw the officers. They were saying ‘go, go go, move it’. Then they said ‘is that Brodie’?” I was so shocked I thought what on earth has my son done?
“I just couldn’t believe it. There were 10 of them in total. They then said they wanted the gun and they took it away into one of the cars and looked at it for half an hour to somehow prove it was just a toy.”
Ms Pearsall said her son was left in floods of tears after the incident on Tuesday. Brodie said: “I was very frightened. There were loads of officers with guns and dogs.”
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: “Police were called to Harcourt Road shortly after 9pm on Tuesday night following a report of group of youths, some with a firearm. Officers responded accordingly.”
5 Comments
It’s a toy gun. What are they thinking, if a child can’t go outside and play with his toy gun its gonna be a nightmare. Kids enjoy running around shooting each other with toy guns. If they can’t play Army Commando with toy guns then what they gonna use, Sticks and Stones!!!!!
I remember when i used to play with my toy guns and i loved it, but telling kids that they can’t take their toy guns outside will ruin that memory as all i’ll think about is what has happened to a kids freedom.
It might only be a toy, but it looks real enough in the photograph. Surely in this day and age of terrorist outrages, it is foolish in the extreme for parents to allow their children to brandish these kind of authentic-looking ‘weapons’ on the street. Can’t they buy him an Action Man instead?
What state has England got to,
a 10 year old kid being confronted by TEN real commandos!.
Is this country a third rate African military regime were they enrol 10 year old kids to walk the streets with guns?
I know we all have to be alert with all this guncrime and terrorism, but isn’t there any “common sense” left from the police or the neighbours??
the police called the kid by his first name so I would have thought they would have checked who lived in the house and that he was only TEN YEARS OF AGE!.
Young lads have and will always liked to play with plastic guns, so untill they ban guns being shown on the TV and plastic guns being sold, I can’t see it changing.
“Common sense” should prevail or we all don’t stand a chance!!
And what would have happened if the ten year old had a real gun. He stands in the street for an hour going bang! bang ! and then accidentally finds the safety and shoots three of his mates dead. “We thought it was a toy” just wouldn’t have been accepted by the parents or the community now would it. I agree that times have changed and some toy guns are so lifelike that they really cannot take the chance anymore. Common sense dictates that you assume it is real till you know it isn’t. Granted though a full scale ten man commando type team may have been a little over the top.
What 10 year old would walk around with a real machine gun. Get real !!!
The fact that the lad is 10 year old and he is walking around with a machine gun. Common sense would tell you its not real. Total waste of police time again again again!!!!!!!