BB-gun joke mistaken for hostage situation


Montgomery County, Ohio - Miamisburg police received a 911 call from a man at a three-way stop at Linden Avenue and Maue Road Sunday shortly after noon.

The man reported seeing a green minivan with a passenger pointing a chrome gun at the head of the driver of the van.



A short time later, at 12:52 p.m., a Miami Twp. police officer on routine patrol traveling east on Ohio 725 in front of the Dayton Mall spotted a green Kia minivan matching the description of the van from the Miamisburg police, who had reported its involvement in a possible hostage situation.

The license plate number matched the number reported by the Miamisburg Police, Miami Twp. Police Officer David Ooten reported in a narrative of the situation.

Ooten said he stopped the van on Ohio 725 using his emergency lights. He exited the cruiser and drew his duty weapon, “keeping it at a low ready stance.”

He could see children in the van, so he yelled for the driver to roll down the window and keep his hands out where they could be seen. He placed the two children, a boy, 9, and a girl, 14, in the back of his cruiser “for safety due to heavy traffic,” he wrote in his report.

Ooten waited for another officer to arrive on the scene and then patted down the driver of the van, Robert Rice, 42, of Franklin. He found no weapon.

Rice explained that it was all a joke between him and his 14-year-old granddaughter. The gun was a chrome plated BB-gun, he said. He said he had dropped it off at his house when he dropped off his other grandson in Franklin.

Ooten questioned the boy and girl and was told by the girl that she was the one holding the BB-gun and had pointed it at her grandfather because he thought it would be a funny joke.

The children’s mother and father arrived on the scene and the father became disorderly, cursing about the children being in the cruiser, Ooten wrote in his report. The father, who continued cursing after being ordered back to his own vehicle, ended up getting a disorderly warning from Ooten.

The Miamisburg police gave Rice a summons for inducing panic. “How stupid can you be?” Miamisburg Capt. Ron Hess said.

Middletown Journal

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