Zanesville police looking for community solution to uptick in gel gun incidents

ZANESVILLE − Zanesville Police and the Muskingum County Juvenile Court are ready to start charging kids with disorderly conduct for throwing or shooting missiles and other criminal acts associated with the misuse of gel guns, according to Zanesville Sgt. Matt Popadak, after seeing a huge uptick in incidents.“We’ve also called our SROs (School Resource Officers) and asked them to make an announcement, whether it’s an assembly or something, to let these kids know this is getting out of hand,” said Popadak. “I don’t think (these kids) are doing this maliciously, but you have to be responsible for every Orbeez gel that comes out of that gun.”The Zanesville Police have seen gel gun incidents ranging from drive-by shootings that harmed pedestrians and other drivers to more serious incidents of police responding with real guns to gel gun situations.“It’s a huge concern for us,” said Popadak of an incident earlier this week that saw a Zanesville resident call 911 and report that they’d heard a loud bang and then a child yell, “You just shot my dad!”“We responded with lights and sirens running thinking we had real gunfire,” said Popadak. “If a car would have pulled away from that scene at a high speed, we would have been in a high-speed car chase, and pulled these kids out with real firearms.”Popadak said it’s his worst fear right now as the incidents continue to increase.“We don’t know what’s in that vehicle that we’re pulling over. We don’t know it’s (gel) guns,” he said. “The call we received is someone’s been shot with a real gun. So, we’re going to handle it like a real gun.“It’s not just scary for the kids in the car. It’s scary for us, too. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”A group of kids got into a fight at Putnam Park after one group stole another group’s Orbeez guns, according to Popadak. When it turned physical, one of the kids got scared, jumped in his car, fled the scene by driving through the park, the basketball court, and when he emerged on the other side onto the road, he hit a pedestrian with his car.A child brought an Orbeez gun into a local middle school and shot another student with it in the middle of class, Popadak continued.“If somebody would have called 911 and said there was a gun at a school, there would have been a county-wide emergency response,” he said.In another incident, a public game of Orbeez resulted in a 1-year-old child being shot in the face, which created welts on the child’s body.Another Zanesville citizen was shot in the face driving down the road after a public game of Orbeez went awry.“There have been several other incidents reported of teenagers hanging out of sunroofs, wearing masks, driving down the street, and shooting the (gel) guns,” said Popadak. “Usually at other vehicles with kids that also have (gel) guns, but then it hits pedestrians, other drivers, and property.”Popadak said the drive-by situation could escalate quickly, especially since many kids are now “blacking out” the brightly-colored Orbeez guns with black Duct Tape — an act that is illegal to do in New York, where imitation guns must remain brightly colored.

“John Q Citizen sees a mask, a black gun, and he thinks it’s a drive-by shooting getting ready to occur,” said Popadak. “Who’s to say (that citizen doesn’t) pull out a concealed carry weapon and start shooting? That’s my worst fear, is having to go to that call.”This won’t be the first time that police struggle to find a solution to the dangerous use of gel guns.Since their appearance in Australia and China as early as 2018, the popular gel guns have put communities worldwide on edge. In Australia, safety concerns were immediately addressed when children started showing up in emergency rooms with eye injuries from the gel guns, and when criminals started using them in holdups and drive-bys. In 2020, South Australia Police declared gel ball blasters a regulated imitation firearm and required people to obtain a Category A firearm license and registration to carry one.China saw similar bans after an outcry for restrictions to protect the public.In America, New York has already banned the gel blasters under the law that imitation weapons cannot resemble real guns.Popadak said he’d rather not ban the guns if they can help it, and instead find a community-friendly solution that allows kids to play the game in a safe environment like a laser tag or paintball game.“We don’t want to just throw the book at these kids. We want them to do it in a safe manner,” said Popadak. “But it’s starting to get too serious. And that’s why we need to slow it down.“I want to believe most of these kids understand where we’re coming from, and that they’re just having fun. But, unfortunately, it’s a few kids ruining it for everybody. And for now, we need it to get under control."

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Zanesville police ready to charge people for misuse of gel guns