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SOUTH JORDAN — Sam Winkler was a rookie officer when he pulled over a driver and asked for his license and registration.
What happened next still stands out in Winkler's mind "several years" later as a moment that could have ended in death.
"The driver reached into the glove box. There was a black gun in there, and my training kicked in," said Winkler, now a master officer with the South Jordan Police Department.
"I did pull my service weapon out; told him not to move," Winkler said. "He complied with all the instructions."
More officers arrived and the gun was retrieved from the car. It turned out to be a toy that had been painted black by the driver's friends.
"He was a 19-year-old kid and had the scare of his life," Winkler said. "I had the scare of my life, too."
The challenge of trying to determine if a gun is real is one that continues to plague law enforcement around Utah and across the country. Officers know the price for being wrong is extremely high, and their training tells them to treat every gun as a legitimate threat until proven otherwise, Winkler said.
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Bountiful mother says 'exaggerated' police report prompted ambush over toy gun
A mother is outraged after she said an "exaggerated" call to police prompted her family to be ambushed by officers, all over a toy gun.Not even an orange tip on the end of a barrel — like the one required on all toy guns by federal law — is not to be trusted, he said.
"It very well could have been painted on the front orange and be a real gun," Winkler said. "We don't actually know until we physically handle the gun to see if it's real or not."
Bountiful police have said that is why multiple officers surrounded Janelle Woolley's car during a July 31 traffic stop in Davis County.
"We received a call from an off-duty police officer who saw someone sticking a handgun out the side of a vehicle and pointing it at homes driving down a major road in Bountiful," said Lt. Dave Edwards, adding that officers treated the call as "high risk."
Woolley said her 17-year-old son was merely "twirling" the "dollar store" toy gun around his finger inside the car while he played a hand-held video game in the other hand. She said she believes that is not a crime. However, Edwards said the teen could face disorderly conduct charges.
Winkler, who declined to comment on the Bountiful case, said South Jordan passed its own ordinance in 2008 to address the use or display in public places of BB guns, Airsoft guns and other guns that propel a projectile.
Just like we teach kids in gun safety, all guns are real until we can prove otherwise.
–Sam Winkler, master officer with the South Jordan Police Department
"Our ordinance states that you can't have a gun like that out in public view — walking down the street carrying it, out in a public park shooting it or anything like that where it may cause alarm to anybody," Winkler said.
The ordinance was passed in 2008. One year prior, South Jordan officers responded to 44 reports of someone with a gun that turned out to be a toy, Winkler said. So far in 2015, officers have responded to six calls where the gun involved was a toy, he said.
In most cases, a first offense is met with a warning, according to Winkler. But people should still expect officers to respond to these calls as if the guns involved are real, he said.
"Just like we teach kids in gun safety, all guns are real until we can prove otherwise," Winkler said.
