Police arrested and charged 10-year-old Gavin Carpenter, in Fort Carson, Colorado, with felony menacing — a class 5 felony which has since been removed — over a toy gun.
Carpenter stated in a report, “The toy bow was an orange Nerf bow. It didn’t work. Nothing could shoot out of it. Nothing would come out of it. The weapon, well toy I had, had an orange tip. It was also broken and couldn’t shoot anything out of it.” The incident occurred in July 2019.
However, that didn’t stop police from detaining him, as he and his friend played Fortnite outside. He adds, “They came back over, told me my rights, and told me what was going to happen. They put handcuffs on me, and I got into the car.”
During their playtime, Gavin says he and a friend pretended to shot at about 5 to 10 cars, until one man, “slammed his breaks and started reversing as fast as he could.” He adds, “He came up and started getting very heated and was very mad. I was at the time, very scared.”
Subsequently, the man called police, ending with Gavin and his friend’s arrest, fingerprinting and mugshots taken. Gavin says, “I told them I had no intention to have scared them or have any threat to their life.”
While trying to have their son released, Gavin’s parents Chris and Stephanie hired an attorney to have their son’s record expunged, but the D.A. wasn’t having it.
Instead, he had to enroll in a diversion program, including community service, an essay, and other tasks. After 216 days, the felony was finally expunged.
