Boy, 6, Gets Realistic Toy Gun in School Gift Giveaway

• Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

PONTIAC, MI – Brieanna Johnson was shocked when she saw the gift her 6-year-old son received when a local business adopted children in a Pontiac elementary school and showered them with Christmas presents.

It was a realistic looking toy gun equipped with a silencer, a gift Johnson said she wouldn’t have purchased herself and toy she doesn’t allow her son to use in play.

“This is not really a good gift to give a 6-year-old,” Johnson told WXYZ-TV.

Johnson said the first-grader at Pontiac’s Herrington Elementary School knew the toy was off limits. He gave it to his grandparents when he returned home from school that day.

“It’s all over the news that kids are being killed for having airsoft guns like this,” Johnson said.

Tamir Rice, 12, was fatally shot in November 2014 by a Cleveland, OH, police officer investigating a report that someone was brandishing a gun at the park. The gun turned out to be an air gun that looked like a real firearm.

In 2013 in Santa Rosa, CA, 13-year-old Andy Lopez was fatally shot by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy who thought his authentic looking AK-47 pellet gun was a real firearm.

In 2015, a 15-year-old in Los Angeles was shot in the back by a police officer who thought his toy gun was real. He survived.

The principal at the school, who didn’t know the 6-year-old had been given a toy gun, apologized to Johnson when she complained.

“It was a good generous thought,” Johnson told the television station, “but it wasn’t the right gift.”

Pontiac Schools Superintendent Kelley Williams said the school district will improve its communication with donors about what gifts are appropriate, as well as require packaging that will allow school officials to inspect them before they’re distributed.