3 charged under city law on replica guns

Advertiser Staff

Three of four men arrested early Wednesday in Manoa Valley are the first people to be charged with violating a new city law that prohibits carrying unconcealed replica handguns in public.

Jamieson Pond, 20, and two 19-year-olds, Andrew Park and Kory Takekawa, were arrested at 12:20 a.m. on Kolowalu Street near Noelani Elementary School.

Honolulu Police Department Capt. Marie McCauley said an officer, responding to reports of suspicious activity, confronted one man holding what appeared to be a silver handgun.

Police seized a second gun from the waistband of another suspect and found a third gun on a railing near a third suspect.

All were air guns that shoot plastic BBs or pellets but are reproductions of real firearms. The intent of the law signed by Mayor Jeremy Harris last month is to protect officers and the public from situations in which a replica gun might injure someone.

The law prohibits people from having unconcealed replica guns in public or having them out in the presence of a law enforcement officer.

"It's not something you should be carrying on the street," McCauley said. "It's not a plaything."