Hands up and drop the £1 plastic gun
EXCLUSIVE: Armed cops’ toy raid
GUN cops surrounded a terrified dad — after his son was seen playing with a £1 plastic toy pistol.
Officers swooped on Dennis Austin as he took out a bag of recycling on his drive — and ordered him to put his hands up.
The police, carrying machine guns, then scoured his home for weapons.
The raid came after a woman had reported seeing an “armed and dangerous” man in Dennis’s Ford Mondeo as he drove home.
It was in fact his 13-year-old son Curtis playing with a blue plastic gun from Poundland.
Dennis, 51, of Newport, South Wales, said: “As I lifted the garage door up I could see a bloke across the road in a van with a helmet on and a walkie-talkie. I thought, ‘Why is he watching me?’ Then I heard him shout my name and say, ‘Go, go, go.’
“From behind the driveway wall up came four or five police with machine guns pointing at me.
“They said, ‘Quick, drop the bag and put your arms where I can see them’. They had shields, Tasers, machine guns, the lot.”
Dennis nervously explained the mix-up when told about the gun by police, who used six vehicles and 12 armed officers in the operation. They also told drinkers in a nearby pub to stay inside.
Unemployed Dennis added: “Surely there are other ways round this? The toy gun had been on Curtis’s lap in the car. It wasn’t as if he was flashing it around.”
Police said they acted on information received and had satisfied themselves there was no threat to the public.