Police Officer Praised for Use of ‘Commendable Restraint’

A city police officer was lauded Thursday for using “commendable restraint” when a gun was pointed at him by someone hiding in bushes who turned out to be a 10-year-old with a toy, police said.

The officer was driving away from the main police station about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday when he saw a stir in the bushes against the building, Police Lt. Ted Labahn said. The nine-year veteran, whose name was not released, became suspicious and got out of his car with a flashlight.

When he shined it in the bushes, the officer saw a figure in a dark blue jacket with a hood pulled over his head, holding what appeared to be a black revolver, Labahn said.

“I could see a gun in his right hand,” the officer wrote in his report. “[I] ordered him to drop it; he refused. . . . [I] ordered him again, and he switched the gun from right to left hand. At that point I saw the red tip on the barrel of the gun.”

A federal law requires toy manufacturers to place fluorescent or other permanent color markings on the barrel of toy guns so that they cannot be mistaken for real firearms. That law was passed in 1988 after a 5-year-old Stanton boy pointing a toy gun was fatally shot by a Stanton police officer.

Labahn commended the officer for making keen decisions in potentially life-threatening circumstances.

“When you’re in that situation and you see a gun, you lock onto the gun, because you need to know where it goes,” Labahn said. “You may not always notice the person who is holding it. If it’s in the dark, sometimes it’s virtually impossible to tell.”

“When you have an officer who is faced with a situation that would justify the use of deadly force, we make a note that he used commendable restraint,” Labahn said.

The 10-year-old’s parents were notified.

Labahn said the child was lucky.

“This young man basically did not get shot because of the color on the tip of the barrel,” he said.