SWAT Team Called in for Lego Gun

?Sorry, it’s one of those times where I just have to cut and paste the article. From Toronto’s National Post:

Of all the things available for order on the Internet, it was a replica Lego gun that grabbed Jeremy Bell’s attention.

The
29-year-old partner at teehan+lax, a downtown Toronto user-experience
design firm, had ordered the gun from the online retailer BrickGun,
which sells realistic Lego replicas of firearms. Just how realistic,
Jeremy would soon find out in an encounter with the friendly
neighbourhood SWAT team.

After receiving the Lego gun kit in the mail on Wednesday, he brought it to work to show his colleagues.

“I
decided to put it together,” Mr. Bell wrote on his blog yesterday. “I
literally assembled it, handed it to a coworker (who promptly broke it)
and then put it back in the box.”

It was the end of the day
so Mr. Bell and a few colleagues decided to wind down by playing a few
rounds of the video game Modern Warfare 2 at the office before heading
home. A little while later, sudden, intense yelling filled the office
hallways.

“We originally thought there was some sort of
domestic dispute out there … that was until I clearly heard my name,”
said Mr. Bell.

“The guy sounded seriously angry and was instructing me to slowly come into the hall with my hands on my head.”

It
was Toronto’s Emergency Task Force, more commonly known as the SWAT
team, responding to calls of a man in an office with a gun.

“I
was surrounded by about six SWAT guys armed with shotguns and assault
rifles,” he said. “Once they confirmed I wasn’t packing any Lego heat,
I walked backwards towards them, was then cuffed, pulled into the
stairwell and thrown against the wall.”

While two members of
the SWAT team kept Mr. Bell pressed against the wall, he explained that
there was a Lego gun in pieces in his office. Sure enough, a few
minutes later, an officer confirmed it.

“We found it … it’s Lego,” Mr. Bell recalled the officer saying, as the police promptly uncuffed him.

It
turns out police were tipped off by a neighbour whose apartment looks
in on Mr. Bell’s office. Police say a call came in shortly after 5:30
p.m. with the caller reporting that a man was sitting in his office
with a gun on his desk and the door closed (Mr. Bell had been on an
earlier conference call so had closed the door).

“With calls
like this you have to be safe, not sorry,” said Const. Tony Vella, a
Toronto police spokesman. “Until we know it’s not a gun, we have to
take it seriously.”

So…  questions:
? You can buy a Lego gun?
? Who would buy a Lego gun?
? Who would buy a Lego gun and have it shipped to his work instead of his home?
? And build it at his work desk?
Good lord. Of course, if this had happened in America, 18 people would’ve died before anyone figured out there were Legos involved. Thanks to Popped Culture for the tip.