Wiscasset Police Department

On the beat

Fri, 06/16/2017 - 12:15pm

Aside from another week of seat belt violations in Wiscasset – and Newcastle/Damariscotta is next, kids, so beware, it's been a quiet week in our fair village. There were the usual end-of-school festivities, some fun and some less so, some campaign hijinks, in which campaign signs went missing mysteriously and just as mysteriously returned, and one interesting suspicious activity that included air guns.

The guns weren't real and no one was ever in danger, but they looked real, and people got nervous, and so we got a call. And it wasn't the first time.

About a year ago, a group of kids was playing soldier out in the woods with astonishingly real-looking guns that also turned out to be air guns. People who heard about the boys with the guns on the scanner – and there were a lot of them, including this newspaper's police and court reporter – called in to find out what was going on.

We don't often see bands of armed desperadoes wandering Wiscasset's streets, and in fact, we didn't then, either. But it can be an unnerving experience to see young men in military dress carrying things that look like semi-automatic weapons, and that often brings the police in contact with the role-playing kids in the woods. If you see such kids, call us, don't be a hero. And if you are one of these kids, smile and wave and put the guns DOWN when we show up.

Enjoy the nice weather, and buckle up!