VT fallout? One broken B.B. gun = four arrests
Original article @readthehook.com
On Monday night, April 23, just after 11 P.M., police responded to reports of a gunman outside an engineering building.
Coming a week after the Virginia Tech massacre, terrified students barricaded themselves in rooms; at least one had a panic attack so sever she had to be hospitalized. More than two dozen police responded with guns drawn, only to discover four students filming a skit for their Japanese language class.
The weapon? A broken plastic b.b. gun used for a scene in which one character mugs another on the streets of Tokyo. The supposed gunman, 19-year-old Christopher Allen Smith, a UVA second-year, was arrested on the scene and spent the next two nights in jail before being released on $10,000 bond Wednesday morning. He was then charged with misdemeanor brandishing a firearm.
Three other students, Caroline Y. Choe, Jerry N. Hsieh, and Eric Chau, were arrested Thursday night, April 26. Facing the same charges as Smith, they were booked and released the same evening.
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Albermarle Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Camblos, who brought the charges against all four students, says the egregiousness of their offense cannot be overestimated.
"There's a horrific set of facts involved with this case," says Camblos. "It put a lot of police to a lot of work and scared a number of university students to the point that several had to go to the hospital."
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"It was stupid, no doubt," syas John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. "But we don't put people in jail for being stupid."
North Caroline-based
Mikael Gross, a lawyer and former police officer who helped apprehend the shooter at the Appalachian Law School murders in 2002, agrees. "How can you brandish a weapon if it's not a real weapon?" he asks. "I know it's a short period of time after Virginia Tech, but people have to remember the Constitution is still the Constitution."
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The students say they have written letters of apology to the affected students in Wilsdorf Hall. "Even though the alleged threat wasn't real," says Choe, "all the distress and emotional trauma that ensued was real and is just as much of a reason to feel horrible about this incident."
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And in a case of closing the barn doors after the animals have escaped... Gov. Tim Kaine has signed an executive order that prohibits the sale of firearms to anyone ordered to seek mental health treatment and declared dangerous to themselves. (
Richmond TImes Dispatch)
Meanwhile....
http://www.derfcity.com/n/newtoon.html (until 5/7)
P.S. My first thought when reading the article and seeing the photograph, is that there might have been racial profiling. But Smith (photo at bottom of page) was the guy seen with the gun. No need for nasty speculation.