Armed police search for teen

Armed police were called to suburban Mount Maunganui yesterday following a report of a teenage boy chasing another teen with a rifle.
Mount Maunganui Police Acting Sergeant Lee Stringer said a member of the public called 111 after seeing a boy holding what appeared to be an AK47 in Ranch Rd at 10.50am.
Police cordoned off a section of the road between Dee and Tui Sts for about half an hour during which time they recovered a replica assault rifle from a house in Ranch Rd.
Mr Stringer said the majority of the seven police officers that responded to the call were armed.
"Obviously we treated it as we always do, at the top end of the level and work it down from there," he said.
Police are yet to speak to the boy believed to have been in possession of the BB gun.
Mount Maunganui Police Sergeant Craig Madden said the incident was a real concern because of the difficulty distinguishing between replica firearms and the real thing.
Acting area commander Inspector Karl Wright St-Clair said police standard operating procedure is to treat all reports of people armed with firearms seriously and the weapons as being real and loaded until proven otherwise.
Mr Wright St-Clair said the teenagers may have thought they were only playing but police are always concerned about the potential for danger to members of the public when any firearm is presented in the public domain.
"There is always potential for danger when people present firearms in public whether they are imitation or real," he said.
The Armed Offenders Squad responded with the right amount of response to this incident, he said.
Mr Wright St-Clair would not comment on whether the current rules around imitation guns needed enhancing.
Member of the Bay of Plenty branch of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association Dean Maisey said any sort of negative publicity to do with firearms was not helpful.
"We regret any negative publicity to do with sporting firearms but at the end of the day these things are not firearms, they're toys in the eyes of the law.
"It's unfortunate that certain individuals, who should be using common sense and not doing these things, are wasting police time."
He said deer stalkers were waiting to see the outcome of amendments to the arms act being debated in parliament at the moment which may impose restrictions on the importation of replica gun. He said replica guns were gaining in popularity for use in gaming.