Police in France have banned ‘dangerous’ Halloween costumes featuring fake guns and knives. The development comes after a teenage boy dressed as the fictional character Mr T caused a major terror scare.
At a time when France is still recovering from Islamists gunman marauding through the streets of Paris during the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the Police department of Alpes-Maritimes, southern France, is taking no chances this Halloween.
“Have fun, be imaginative, scare people – but don’t terrorize!” the police wrote on Twitter. Adding “Dangerous toy guns are forbidden.”
To be completely clear, the force also sent out a series of pictures illustrating some “acceptable” and “unacceptable” costume ideas. Any outfit featuring a gun, sword or knife is deemed “unacceptable.”
In February, in near by Nice, the police launched a massive manhunt after a witnesses reported seeing a man roaming around town armed with a Kalashnikov, reported French newspaper Le Parisien.
Police scoured CCTV from across the city and scrambled all available officers to hunt the man down, fearing an imminent terrorist attack.
However, when the suspected Jihadist was found, he turned out to be a 17-year-old boy on his way to a fancy dress party. He was wearing a Mr T outfit, dressed as the character from the iconic 1980’s drama The A Team.
The boy’s plastic gun was confiscated, and he escaped with just a warning.
The police department’s reaction was somewhat understandable, taken that just a few days earlier in the city two soldiers, who were protecting a Jewish centre, had been viciously attacked by a man wielding a knife.
The soldier had been sent to guard the Jewish centre as, just days before, Islamists gunman had attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris, killing five, shortly after 11 were killed in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.