The sheriff got us...

pfista

pfista

Well-known member
Yes, I had a run in with the law. (kind of)

My original location for a short i'm making was going to be in this place called "the villagio" which is an upscale shopping strip center type of thing. It would have been great since it is currently under construction and from when I checked it out on the weekend it just seemed like it would work. Well, we all got up early saturday morning to go shoot, but construction men started showing up (i thought they wouldn't) so obviously we left since we had no permission to be there. On to plan B, we decided to go to this place called la centera which has a three story parking garage that could work. The parking garage was completely empty on the second and third story. So we start shooting our movie "Airhard... It's not soft". Basically, this movie is a spoof of airsoft, so yes, we had a bunch of airsoft guns. My friend joseph, was holding this AR-15 (which had no orange tip), when a sheriff's police car sticks its hood out from behind one of the garage pillars and starts checking us out. I was facing away from him, so joseph says to me "yeah...there's a sheriff right there." My first response is "so", and when I turned around to look he had backed up and hidden himself from us. Obviously he had seen joseph holding the gun, so I said "yeah, you should probably put the gun down" Which he would have done anyways even if I hadn't have told him. So the sheriff pulled out again and drove up to where we were and said "step away from the weapon" and was asking if it was real. My other friends who were there also had airsoft guns and the sheriff told them to drop them down. So then he told us to sit against the wall and he ran our licenses to see if we had a clean record or not. Then he gave a pretty long lecture explaining how we were trespassing and how if someone would have seen us they could have had the SWAT team come and it would be a big mess. Also, how the La centera management could press charges (just like those other kids who got sued, but we weren't making fun of la centera, we were just on their garage, and no stores or anything could be seen) So he kicked us out and said we couldn't come back unless we were parking there to go shop. And that's pretty much it. Now the only place that I have permission to film it is inside of my church, which would be kind of wierd.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation to this?
 
Gotta say, that was a class I bonehead move. You got off pretty easy, considering what could have happened. So, you're running around with what look like real weapons in a public place, on someone's private property. You didn't clear the filming with the owners and the police when you should have done both. You could have gotten your friends hurt or worse because of a misunderstanding. Stealing a location is one thing, but doing it with weapons is just plain stupid and negligent.
 
Always, always, always, always, let me say this again, ALWAYS let the local police department know where you are filming if you are using ANYTHING that remotely looks like a weapon.
 
This is the way society works these days. Everybody overreacts about everything and it's up to you to be on the right side of the law. Generally if they see a bunch of kids and a camera then they'll figure it out, but they like to talk big to scare you. But either way, lesson learned. If you're gonna show up with your buddies to just go film something, find a much more out-of-the-way location and if you're gonna be somewhere remotely public then let the cops know so they don't flip out.
 
A classmate in film school decided to shoot this Vietnam epic (well, it wasn't exactly Vietnam; it was supposed to be "all wars," but everyone was dressed in Vietnam-era BDUs, with Timberline boots, and carrying either *real* deer rifles, or *real* shotguns...) and chose a local park in the Syracuse, NY area, for his locations.

And didn't tell anybody, at all, what he was planning.

The best part of his rushes, was where several of his actors are all hunkered down in the middle of a trail, making like they're in the middle of a firefight, and a couple joggers come jogging around the bend in the path, take one look at what's going on, and without breaking step turn around and jog away as fast as they can...

...when the police arrived, John tried to stall them while having his crew continue taking shots, behind him. He didn't get arrested, but he *did* wind up having to answer a summons...
 
...nothing personal to you.

But it's stupid $#!T like this why airsoft is being banned almost everywhere and getting a bad track record to the public eye. It's why legit airsoft parks are getting closed. I say this because I am an avid airsoft player.

You're lucky he approached you with caution and didn't call the swat team on you guys before investigating you guys further.

People have been killed accidentally by law enforcement because of this. Those airsoft rifles are a 1:1 scaled replica of the originals. It's impossible to tell at a distance without the orange nozzle.
 
Pfista,
do yourself and your community a big favor---go look that Sheriff up in person and thank him for giving you such a tremendous break. That could have turned out so badly, so easily. You owe that guy big time.
Seriously. Go find him and thank him.
 
pfista said:
Yes, I had a run in with the law. (kind of)
Has anyone else been in a similar situation to this?
Click to expand...

negative.

cause when I have scene with a gun, I go about it the non-idiotic-get-yourself-imprisoned kind of way.

nothing about pulling out replica firearms in a public place made some kind of alarm bells go off in your head?

you're lucky that ended the way it did. I know of people that have had the swat team called on them...

I am going to go ahead and say this was total Dumb ass move.
 
it sucks that just a couple bastards had to go shoot up their schools and make everyone completely paranoid. In high school, the principal called the cops on my friends and I because we had a supersoaker battle in the park, but technically it became a 'drive by shooting' when one kid squirted another from out a car window (this was with a fluorescent orange super soaker) The cops chewed us out for an hour or so.

I sympathize with you because I understand your intentions are completely harmless. Unfortunately you have to abide by the system because a few bad apples ruined it for us all.

But you should know that's the way it works, and being in a sketchy location like that, at least have a point man looking out for anyone coming near the set.

PS I have since bought a super soaker 'secret shot', the type that shoots out of the handle. so the next time I have to put my hands up in surrender (like if swat busts me), the joke is on them because I can fire straight forwards while pointing the barrel into the sky.
 
I really dont think a few bad apples ruined it here in this case - never has it been ok to show up with replica ak47's anywhere. The super soaker thing is totally different and I agree pretty silly that they got so bent out of shape about it. But full scale replicas of assualt rifles without the orange safety tip needs law enforcement aware of the situation. If you're smart you'll call them in advance and maybe even get them to "supervise", otherwise they'll probably show up anyways and "supervise" on their terms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top