KEY POINTS:
Police have issued a warning about carrying fake firearms after an armed offenders squad callout to a Hamilton house this morning.
Streets in the suburbs of Enderley were cordoned off just before 11am following reports of a shot being fired.
An imitation M4 assault rifle was found at the Mardon Road house, and a man in his late teens was being questioned, police said.
Six other people from the house had also been interviewed.
The cordon has since been lifted and the AOS stood down.
Last month, Hamilton police dealt with two other incidents involving imitation firearms being used in a public place.
In one incident, two schoolboys were confronted by armed officers in what police described as a close call.
"These imitation weapons appear very realistic, and as a result when the public encounters someone with one of these guns they quite rightly think they're real," Inspector Karen Henrikson said.
Police wanted people to consider if they really needed such items as imitation firearms and if they did, not to use them in a public place.
"We've been lucky so far that each of the last three incidents have been resolved without injury but these situations have the potential for very tragic consequences," she said.
- NZPA
