Teen Deaths Fuel Drive to Outlaw Toy Guns

Silivelio Grohse’s favorite toy was a plastic pistol. Almost any afternoon, he could be found on a hillside behind a Potrero Hill housing project, waving the gun in a solo game of cops and robbers.

Silivelio, nicknamed “Tony,” did not understand the concept of shooting, those who knew him said. Severely retarded, Tony, 13, could barely speak or perform tasks requiring coordination.

“He was a sweet kid,” said Steve Diamond, his special education teacher. “He didn’t know about life or death. He just loved to play.”

Playing on Hillside

The afternoon of Feb. 17, Tony was playing on the hillside with his toy handgun about the same time police received reports of gunfire in the area.

Officers Michael Huddleston and Janet Campbell responded. They said they did not see a severely retarded youth with a toy. They saw something quite different--a hefty young man responding to their command, “Drop your weapon!” by turning, assuming the classic firing stance and letting out what witnesses said was a “Tarzan-like” yell.

The officers fired four times, and Tony Grohse was dead before he made it to the hospital.

The investigation continues, but all indications are that neither officer will face charges or be disciplined. The reason, said city supervisor Wendy Nelder, is obvious--in such a situation, the officers had no choice but to shoot.

Nelder, whose father, Al, was chief of police in 1970-1971, blamed the toy, those who made it and the “misguided” friend or relative who gave it to Tony.

“You’ve got to ask, what positive purpose are they (toy guns) serving in our society?,” Nelder said after introducing an ordinance to ban the sale and manufacture of realistic-looking toy guns in the city.

Nelder’s measure is expected to pass easily. So far, she has received nothing but support from residents, police officers, other lawmakers and even toy makers and sellers.

“Many manufacturers told me they already sell far fewer toy guns in this area than in most places,” Nelder said. Many local stores from huge Toys R Us to small toy boutiques stopped selling toy weaponry long ago.

But many toy guns are bought at department and warehouse stores, where inventory is controlled by out-of-area buyers, Nelder said. That system led to a regrettable episode.

Pay ‘N’ Save stores in the Bay Area were flooded with angry calls when the Seattle chain’s coupon book landed in thousands of mailboxes, just days after Grohse’s death, touting sale items including, “Plastic Uzi: Hours of Fun! 99 cents!”

Managers of stores in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland quickly pulled the guns off their shelves and dumped the promotion.

Unaware of Incident

“We develop our ads in advance and we were unaware of the San Francisco incident up here,” Pay ‘N’ Save spokesman Kevin Regan explained.

While Nelder waits for her measure to pass, she’s working on an education program to help prevent further incidents. Inserts in utility bills will “explain that toy guns are so realistic you can only tell they are fake by close inspection.”

Police officers, Nelder noted, have neither the time nor the inclination to approach an apparently armed person to examine the weapon.

“No cop wants to come in second-best in a shoot-out,” Nelder said. “As a police brat, I can’t tell you how many funerals I’ve been to over the years, but it’s too many.”

Nelder also fears the link between toy and real gunplay. As it happens, while she was introducing her measure,two teen-age boys were tragically making her point as they played with a loaded .22-caliber pistol in a Mission District apartment.

A 10-year-old boy was mortally shot by his uncle, 15, and although the older boy was being held by juvenile authorities on suspicion of negligent homicide, police believed the shooting was accidental.

‘Training Every Day’

“Kids who have (toy) guns get a ‘training program’ every afternoon and evening, watching television,” Nelder said. “A child accustomed to playing with fake guns might find a real gun . . . the child mistakes the real thing for a toy, aims it, pulls the trigger.

“Just like we saw last night.”

Some toy makers will get around Nelder’s measure by making their toy guns look more like toys than guns. LJN Toys Ltd. of New York, for instance, has introduced a new line “in the most improbably wild colorings imaginable,” spokesman Paul Weinstein said.

However, “What the kids want is toy guns that look like real guns,” said David Lewis of Daisy Manufacturing Co., which controls 30% of the toy weapon market. “That’s why they buy them.”

The Grohse incident was the third of its type in San Francisco in just over a year.

On Dec. 22, 1986, a 15-year-old boy was shot to death by police during an after-hours burglary attempt at Lowell High School. Nesley Yip, 15, was brandishing a pellet gun that looked like a .357 Colt Python.

On Feb. 16, a man was seen on a North Beach balcony holding what looked like an Uzi. Luckily for him, he made no threatening moves and police held their fire. The Uzi turned out to be a water pistol.

The problem is especially frustrating for police across the bay in crack-ravaged Oakland, where it’s hard to tell toy-toting kids from 10-year-old drug-runners carrying real Uzis.

“They’re so realistic that there’s no way that an officer in a split second can determine if it’s real or not,” Oakland Police Capt. Larry Rodrigue agreed.

The Pay ‘N’ Save incident sparked an immediate call for a ban on toy weapons in Oakland, Tony Cook of the Bay Area Black United Fund said. The group and others are demanding the City Council pass emergency legislation immediately.

“We are not willing to have an incident like the one in San Francisco in our community,” Cook said.

Other Cities Acting

In California, cities including Burbank, Fresno, Los Angeles and Santa Monica have enacted anti-toy gun ordinances, and a statewide law has been introduced by Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti, but is still in the earliest stages of the legislative process.

State Sen. H. L. Richardson, a conservative Republican and pro-gun activist, said the laws are part of a nationwide effort by anti-gun forces whom he charged gave Roberti “marching orders” to introduce his bill.

“It’s a long-range program to downplay interest in firearms among children,” Richardson said. “It’s an assault on the idea of gun ownership.”

“Why don’t they take away toy medical kits, so kids don’t operate on each other?”