A Cole Valley Market Becomes Scene of Bizarre Standoff Between Police and Fake Robber
This is only a re-enactment, folks.Photo: efootage
We'll be the first to admit that San Francisco gets kookier by the day, but this story has us realizing how much we don't know about what goes on here every day. It turns out that a popular Japanese television show, titled "World's Most Interesting Footage" (we're sure that sounds more compelling in Japanese) is regularly filmed here, featuring re-enactments of crimes and such, which are shot in English and dubbed over in Japanese. One frequent location used for the show is the Alpha Market at 960 Cole Street, and Wednesday, while the Japenese crew was shooting a segment there about a "stupid crime" involving a masked robber with a fake handgun, the SFPD got called in by a concerned neighbor who thought the robbery was real.
Unfortunately for the actor holding the fake gun, who instead of dropping it turned to cops and said, "It's a movie!", he ended up getting tackled to the ground and subdued before police figured out what was going on.
They told the Japanese film crew that the actor was lucky he didn't get shot. But as for whether they had done anything wrong, it turned out they hadn't — the shoot was properly permitted and they could have all the fake guns they wanted, because it was on private property.
But again, who knew that they filmed popular Japanese TV shows here?
Police disarm man with fake gun during filming [Chron]
