Prosecutors Charge First Person Under Hopkins’ New ‘Airsoft Ban’

A Brooklyn Center man is the first person to be charged under a new ban on displaying BB guns and replica firearms in public.

On Monday, prosecutors filed the misdemeanor charge against 26-year-old Jestin Erickson Ledlum. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 90 days in jail and fined $1,000.

The charges stem from a report of a disturbance at 12:25 a.m. June 13 at , Detective Raymond Laudenbach wrote in the charging documents.

Officers in the area saw a shouting match and people run into the building from a car, Police Sgt. Michael Glassberg said. When they looked inside a green BMW, they saw a black pistol lying on the front seat and did not immediately know whether it was a real gun.

They later learned that the pistol was a BB gun.

Ledlum came out of the building and said he was the owner of the BMW, according to the court documents. He said he bought the BB gun earlier that day and planned to bring it into the building where his cousin lived.

Hopkins’ ban on displaying BB guns and replica firearms in public . asked for the ban following two incidents in which Airsoft guns were nearly mistaken for real guns. Officers pulled guns on residents carrying the replicas and worried that they could shoot someone with an Airsoft gun—or an officer could be shot after mistaking a real gun for an Airsoft gun.

Airsoft guns are replica firearms that fire plastic pellets using compressed air or springs.

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( to read a transcript of one of the 911 calls that sparked the proposal.)

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