Armed police raided a Manchester man's living room after they mistook his plastic Lara Croft mannequin for a gunman.
Computer shop owner David Williams, 42, had taken the dummy home to flog it on eBay (naughty, naughty!) but little did he know, his cheeky dealings would soon land him with a gun in his face.
Father-of-two Mr Williams had phoned the old bill after receiving nuisance phone calls from the local hoodies. Unknown to him, officers arrived and called for armed backup after spotting Lara's silhouette in the window.
Quickly the street was cordoned off and a team of armed officers burst through Mr Williams's back door.
"It would have been laughable if it hadn't been so terrifying," the battered shop owner said. "One of the police held a gun and yelled, 'Where's the weapon, where's the weapon?'
"I didn't have a clue what was going on, I assumed they'd got the wrong house. I couldn't believe it when I realised they'd mistaken a Lara Croft dummy for someone with a gun."
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said Williams failed to answer his front door. "They believed they saw a silhouette of a person pointing what appeared to be a firearm inside the house," she said.
"Officers then went into the house and found a mannequin holding a toy weapon." Police followed "correct procedure", she said.
Instead of feeling a bit embarrassed and apologetic, as you would do, police then chucked Mr. Williams in a cell for 13 hours and charged him with an expected firearms offence (and why not add tomb robbing as well?). That's your tax money at work, there, people.
He's now on bail and speaking to lawyers about possible wrongful arrest claims. Good thing he didn't take the Marcus Fenix dummy home...
"Instead of feeling a bit embarrassed and apologetic, as you would do, police then chucked Mr. Williams in a cell for 13 hours and charged him with an expected firearms offence."
Disgraceful. Is it any wonder young people don't respect the police when they pull stunts like that? If the police can't take responsibility for their own mistakes how the hell can they expect young people to do so?
laughable reaction. instead of admiting a mistake the police went ahead and threw him in the slammer anyway. hope they do get busted for wrongful arrest
I'm sorry but the standard of journalism is getting beyond a joke. Firstly this story emerged nearly half a year ago which is bad enough, but the fact that your basing your research (..and most other articles these days) on the findings of the Daily Mail of all places is just lazy. If I wanted to read the Daily Mail, I'll buy it myself.
I'm so bored of using this site now i'm off elsewhere. CVG report 'News' on here thats days old and from other sites!! Load of s**te for news.. back to eurogamer for me.. Bye!
Copy pasting news from GamePolitics.com is the most easy way to go. GJ! I also told GamePolitics, please just your sources before posting. This is a disgrace.... for real dude.
I love this website and check it at least 3 times a week and ofcourse this kind of stuff certainly does not happen every week... maybe just once a year. But it's just a bit bad journalism and I hope the writer of this article can agree on this point.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I like the bit about him taking it home to sell on eBay, nothing strange about that at all, wink, wink, nudge, nudge? 
