Boys wearing pyjamas wave loaded gun at police who fire shots back at them

Two young boys brandishing a loaded gun had a tense standoff with officers, who ended up firing at the pair.

Footage from the scene outside a home in New Mexico, US, shows how the two boys, aged seven and nine, held a gun and refused to drop it despite orders from the police.

The boys, wearing Minecraft and Star Wars pyjamas, were seen hiding behind a large box with the handgun, which they passed to each other on February 16.

Armed sheriff’s deputies took cover behind a nearby wall as they tried to talk the boys into putting the weapon down, or ‘you’re gonna get hit.’

It is unclear how the boys got the gun, but it was revealed that the pair were ‘taught how to use the firearm,’ Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen alleged.

How the officers shot at the boys

A tactical drone hovering above the pair captured how the boys passed the gun before waving it towards the deputies, DailyMail reports.

Then one of the boys decides to pull the trigger, but the gun malfunctions.

Sheriff Allen said in a press conference on Friday: ‘Had that gun gone off, our deputies could have taken deadly force. That would not have gone well with anybody in the nation.’

A female officer pleads with the boys, saying ‘put it down babe’ and that ‘you’re not in trouble, but you have to put it down and come to and talk to us.’

A male officer then tells the pair to ‘put it down on the ground and come and talk to me.’

When the children do not react, he tells a shooter to aim at a wall in a bid to scare the boys.

‘Try not to hit ‘em,’ he advises.

Another officer says: ‘We want to help you. We don’t want to hurt you.

‘Drop it now or you’re gonna get hit!’

After discussing whether to rush the boys, fire a non-lethal round or wait, two rubber bullets are shot at them.

Despite the intervention, the boys still clutch onto the gun.

An officer then dashes to the children in their hiding place and grabs the weapon from one of the pyjama-clad boys.

What happened to the boys?

The sheriff’s office has not released the address of the incident, but it said the family is well-known, with officers called to the home at least 50 times before the standoff.

Sheriff Allen said the boys and family have a documented history of trauma, according to the outlet.

Although the boys demonstrated ‘learned behaviour’ in handling the gun, Sheriff Allen, who reportedly has a tough stance on youth crime, said they will be rehabilitated rather than locked up.

He said: ‘Arresting people isn’t the only way out of this crisis of juvenile crime. You have to look at it from a bunch of different avenues and use the resources you have – and then criminal elements can come later.’

However, had the boys been older, ‘we’d probably be speaking differently,’ he admitted.

Michael Lucero, from the Behavioural Health Unit, who attended, said the complex case has ‘pushed the system to its breaking point’ as teams tried to get help for the boys and their family.

However, one of the boys was denied Medicaid coverage for being too young, which is usually free for those without private medical insurance in the US, DailyMail reports.

They also faced a six-week wait for psychiatric help, while one of the parents was having trouble accessing basic treatment.

Whoever gave the boys the weapon could still be held criminally liable for it after the Bennie Hargrove law was passed in the state in 2023, following a fatal shooting at an Albuquerque middle school.

Gun violence and incidents involving firearms are common in the US, where carrying a weapon is seen as a constitutional right by many.

There were 46,278 gun deaths in 2023, which was the third-highest total on record, according to the Pew Research Centre.

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