Report of gunman has deputies, police converge in Hughson

Officers from Hughson Police Services and the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department converged around the 2000 block of Sixth Street on Wednesday evening after several neighbors reported seeing a person in a hooded shirt with a sniper-type rifle atop a home.

The call came in about 6:45 p.m., and Hughson police sent two units and the Sheriff’s Department five or six, said sheriff’s Sgt. Jon McQueary.

The person on the roof was a male juvenile, who was taken into custody without incident. The weapon, which had a scope and a bipod, turned out to be an airsoft rifle that shoots plastic pellets.

But responding to the incident, officers had no indication that was the case. The response “was a lot for us,” McQueary said, referring to the five or six officers sent. “They cordoned off the area,” he said. “We had to treat it like it was real, had to shut it down.”

The youth was not charged, McQueary said, because the gun was legal and had the orange tip required of such weapons. “He basically was told it wasn’t a smart thing to do, and not to do it again.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2015 at 9:27 AM with the headline "Report of gunman has deputies, police converge in Hughson."