Scottsdale school assignment about airsoft guns raises furor

...About 2:30 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to what they classified as a “high-risk” traffic stop after a man in the 9400 block of East Davenport Drive, near 94th Place, looked out his home window and saw what he believed was a real shooting and abduction in a silver Lexus. The man told police he heard screams and three pops of a gun before he looked out and called 911. The caller said he saw David Seay, 18, one of five people arrested for suspicion of disorderly conduct, chasing three girls with what he believed was a real handgun before Seay placed one of the girls in the trunk of the car and drove away, according to a police report. The gun was an Airsoft handgun, which can shoot pellets. Unknown to police, Seay later dropped the girl off not far down the street, where her friends were waiting for her in another car. But as a Scottsdale police officer responded to the call, he turned on the emergency lights of his cruiser so traffic would clear the intersections. When Seay, the brother of one of the girls involved in the assignment, was found in the Lexus at the intersection, another officer took out his rifle and aimed it at Seay before he ordered him out of the vehicle, according to the report. After the officer doublelocked the handcuffs on Seay, they took him to jail and later found the girls to be uninjured outside a nearby residence. “If I saw something happening, I would be inclined to call the police,” said Jennifer Peterson, a board member who has daughters attending Desert Mountain. “If I saw something I thought was a crime, I would hope I wouldn’t be the type of person to close the blinds and turn away. I would like to know what the outcome was of whatever I saw. Maybe the school should let the police know when they’re going to be filming an assignment or somehow let the neighborhood know what’s going on.” Board member Molly Holzer, who has a son at Desert Mountain, said that she thought it might be a good idea for the teacher to supervise the assignment or maybe contain the filming of it to school grounds. However, Holzer said she couldn’t understand why the grandmother, Marilyn Miller, was arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Miller was filming the simulated crime, police say. Neither Miller nor Seay could be reached for comment Tuesday. Although the group’s convincing performance was ended, it drove one of the girls to tears. Shaking, the girl told police, “I am so sorry, I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.” On January 16, 2006, eight officers surrounded the Desert Mountain Schools Credit Union parking garage in north Scottsdale and drew their guns on students simulating a carjacking using a Jaguar and Airsoft rifles. One of the Airsoft rifles resembled an M-16 assault rifle. When Mietzner was contacted last year, he said the incident at the garage was blown out of proportion, and that he tells the students to stay out of sight when filming the assignment...

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