VANCOUVER — Police were called to a home in east Vancouver today after receiving several calls from nearby residents who described a “massive gunfight” that erupted on their block.
According to eyewitness testimonies, the situation was the result of a “Flash Paintball” event organized by local teens, Jason Edmunds and Erik Chen. To their surprise, the plan for a spontaneous paintball battle intended to take onlookers by surprise created more extreme panic than most hit viral videos.
“We just wanted to do, you know, like one of those videos where you see a bunch of people just doing normal stuff and then everybody just starts dancing and everybody’s like, ‘Wooooah!’ But, with paintball” explained a handcuffed Edmunds, after the event.
He explained that it was their friend Carl Smithers’ birthday and since he really likes paintball, the idea came naturally to them. They invited all their friends over, rented more than two dozen paintball guns and waited in Smithers’ driveway after school.
Edmunds said upon Smithers’ arrival home, he was shocked to see so many people sitting in his driveway, apparently just to talk, listen to music and eat sandwiches.
“He seemed excited,” Chen told The Peak recalling that Smithers stated “awww, did you guys throw me a surprise party? I’ve always wanted a surprise party,” seconds before everyone drew paintball guns and began firing at each other.
It was at this point that onlookers say Smithers’ collapsed into a terrified heap on the ground as his friends stampeded around him yelling and shooting paintballs at each other. “They just started shooting,” recalled a shaken Smithers. “No one even gave me a mask or anything, I just had to lie face down on the ground with my hands over my eyes.”
It was only when Edmunds and Chen heard the police sirens that they say it dawned on them that their idea might have been a little inappropriate. When police arrived on the scene they were greeted by what sounded like automatic gunfire and promptly called for backup which soon surrounded the entire neighbourhood.
It wasn’t until they had an entire S.W.A.T team encircling the house and a helicopter overhead that police say they realized it was just a bunch of dumb kids with paintball guns and delayed to open fire.
Edmunds and Chen were charged with disturbing the peace, fined $500 and tasked with cleaning up the now paint soaked neighborhood. Smithers left the scene unscathed except for a few bruises, and a new deep-seated phobia of driveways.
“Carl needs to loosen up, we were just trying to do something really different for his birthday, something that he’d remember,” Edmunds told The Peak, disappointed by his friend’s luke-warm reaction to their surprise, “I mean it wasn’t even that big a deal, we just broke like three windows.”
Smithers isn’t the only one who is less than thrilled about the entire affair. Local resident, Gill McCauley, was stunned upon hearing the news calling the event “truly shocking.”
“The whole incident really shed light on a far greater issue that has been plaguing North America for years . . . kids aren’t allowed to have fun anymore,” McCauley said shaking his head at ‘adults these days’. “I remember when kids all used to play freely in the streets and now they aren’t even allowed to tear up Mrs. Smithers’ flower garden, shower every house within a two block radius in paint and terrify the entire neighborhood . . . what is the world coming to?”
McCauley concluded his statement by saying that, “it was just a crazy day that almost ended in tragedy” but he remained adamant that “it was just a bit of fun” and also agreed that Carl really does need to loosen up.
