SPECIAL REPORT: Airsoft concerns discussed after two Salinas police shootings

In 2019, Salinas has already seen two officer involved shootings, exactly one month apart.
On February 1, police shot suspect Guadalupe Espinoza after a long standoff near the Creekbridge Safeway. On March 1, a lengthy standoff with Brenda Rodriguez Mendoza, who barricaded herself in the back of a car, ended with Mendoza being shot and killed.

In both cases, officers opened fire because the suspect was armed and/or was threatening the responding officers. However, also in both cases, it was later found that the suspects’ firearms were not real – they were airsoft guns without the legally required orange markings, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.

The recent debate over airsoft guns can be traced back to 2013, when Andy Lopez, 13, was shot and killed by a Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy. Lopez was discovered holding a fake AK-47 rile. That is what was behind SB-199, a California bill, now law, requiring BB/airsoft guns to add fluorescent markings on places like the trigger guard, grip, buttstock, or ammunition magazine or clip. This added on to the federal law requiring BB guns to have an orange tip.

Supporters say this is not just for the knowledge of officers, but for the safety of the people who are carrying the gun. However, unmarked replica guns already exist. Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo voted for the striker fake gun law as a member of the Assembly.

“It doesn’t remove from the market the many replica guns that already exists prior to the law going into effect. There are many households that still have the old ones,” Alejo tells KION.

And these airsoft guns are designed to look like the real thing.

“There’s no way to tell. Not at a distance,” said Gwen Watson, the manager at J&S Surplus and Outdoor store in Moss Landing. “You would have to have it in your hand, looking at it (and) examining it.”

Watson gave us a tour of their stock, with all replicas equipped with the orange tips. Watson agreed with Alejo that there’s a problem – the tell-tale markings on replica guns can be easily removed. If they are in the form of an adhesive, they can be pulled off. If the gun is colored orange, people use spray paint. And others rip off the orange tip.

This presents a challenge for law enforcement.

“If it’s a man with a gun (we’re) called (to respond to), threatening to shoot themselves or shoot you, and they quickly point (the gun) at you, you have to react. You don’t want to take the time to guess wrong,” Sergeant Brian Johnson with the Salinas Police Department said. Johnson also says that people aren’t just removing orange markings, but they are painting real guns with bright colors to make them look like fake guns.

So, really, the color of the weapon, in tense situations, doesn’t play too much of a role in the type of action police take.

“It might give a little bit of a false security. Officers have to react quickly to a situation. Instead of what object is in the hand, it’s more of what the environment is and what the call is that creates the response from the officers,” Johnson said.

That begs the question, is the law requiring distinct markings on BB/airsoft guns useful at all?

“Seeing these tragic cases continue in our state, maybe it is time here in California to require manufacturers to design them completely differently,” Alejo said.

Johnson tells us, “I think if they were going to move forward and actually modify toy guns, they need to change the way they look so that they do not look like a real gun at all – Like a nerf gun. Rounded, very colorful.”

Alejo also discussed the need to find alternative ways to deescalate these potentially deadly situations. He pointed to competing bills in Sacramento involving “police use of force” rules.