JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Two recent incidents on the First Coast involving airsoft guns have authorities concerned about just how real the "toy" weapons look.
This week, the Atlantic Beach Police Department says they got a call about men wearing masks near a construction site. When officers arrived they discovered that the men had fake airsoft guns.
Also this week, Flagler County Sheriff's deputies say they got a 911 call, saying someone was inside of a home with a gun. When they arrived, they saw a woman standing outside with what they thought was a handgun.
Investigators say the woman allegedly pointed the gun at deputies and was then stunned by a responding deputy. After subduing the woman, deputies say they discovered that the gun was, in fact, an airsoft gun.
The entire incident was captured on body camera video.
In the video, you can hear the deputy ask the woman multiple times to put the gun down.
"I was in the store the other day and looked at these guns and they look so realistic," said James Troiano with the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.
Troiano says these toy guns are becoming an issue for law enforcement officers.
"It acts like a gun, it looks like a gun and, to a law enforcement officer, if then pointed at you, then what are you supposed to do," he wondered.
Troiano says the orange tip on the gun in that incident – which is meant to indicate that it's not real -- had been painted black.
He says this was a case of so-called attempted suicide by cop. The woman faces several charges and has since been committed to an institution under Florida's Baker Act.
"She was warned about 20 times to drop the weapon. You hear how calm he was, he did a great job. Had he not acted the way he did, it is a great potential that she would be dead today," Troiano told First Coast News.
