MT. PLEASANT - "Josiah Williams and four of his friends were playing with Airsoft, BB-type guns Thursday night in a grassy area of a Mt. Pleasant apartment complex on Margery Drive.
But the five guys playing a game were surprised when a neighbor called the cops, thinking the guns were real.
"When people walked by we'd, uh, most definitely stop and let people by," 15-year-old Tommy Sharrett explained. "Even if people asked questions about what we were doing, we didn't want to make it look like we played with actual guns. We'd tell them these are Airsoft, we're just playing for fun."
But at least one neighbor thought the guys were using real guns, and that a robbery was taking place.
Josiah said he thinks it's farfetched for someone to think they had real guns. "They were clear Airsoft guns. If you look in the paper you can see the guns they confiscated from us. They're clear, with little green pellets that fly out of them, plastic pellets."
Police showed up, took away the guns and handed out disorderly conduct tickets.
"I don't feel it was necessary, a warning would be just as good," Tommy said.
Josiah said he was "definitely shocked by the whole thing."
The neighbor, who thought it was a robbery, ended up having an asthma attack.
Several other neighborhood residents said they were glad the guys were ticketed.
Each of the five young men will have to pay a $172 fine. But they said they're going to fight the tickets in court."
Disorderly conduct? For playing with toy guns? I'd really and truly like to see that statute. And to the soccer mom who called the cops; @%#&%$* you, lady.
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