By Rupert Howell

Sergeant Freddie Payne with the Batesville Police Department was still unnerved an hour after he had faced a juvenile with not one, but two guns.

It happened Tuesday and luckily one of the guns was a pellet rifle and the other was a toy. But that wasn’t enough to make Payne happy.

At 4:02 p.m. Tuesday Batesville Police Department got a call about somebody running around with a gun in the Court Street area.

Sgt. Payne was first to arrive and saw a young shirtless juvenile, who is 8, with a rifle. The rifle happened to be a Daisy pellet rifle that resembled a Nylon 66 Remington .22 that was popular in the 1960s and ‘70s according to BPD Deputy Chief Don Province.

The policeman instinctively unholstered his sidearm and screamed for the child to drop the weapon. After the child dropped the weapon, the eight-year-old then reached about his pants’ belt area and produced what looked like an automatic pistol.

Had the child not turned away and dropped that toy, the outcome might have been a lot different according to the nine-year veteran.

“A kid will kill you faster than a grownup,” Payne said and noted that there was a teenager accompanying the eight-year-old child.

BPD Detective George Williford was next on the scene to back up Payne.

The toy pistol’s orange marking on the barrel, which represents that it is not a real weapon, had either worn off or had been taken off.

The dark metal pistol had the stamp of Taurus, an authentic gunmaker, on the stock and a clip in the handle.

“It sucks man,” Payne said adding, “It brings back all the emotion.”

Payne had witnessed a gunfight in Southaven when he was employed there.

Just the night before the Tuesday incident he had charged a minor for possession of an assault rifle after a traffic stop. He said the minor planned to sell the rifle.

Batesville Police Chief Tony Jones said Tuesday’s incident, “…scared me thinking about it and I wasn’t even there.”

He praised Payne stating, “He did an extremely good job – that boy could have been dead.”

Jones explained that situations such as this arise typically when school is let out for summer vacation and during Christmas season.

“Parents give these (pellet and BB guns) to children and they start shooting at birds and squirrels and there you go… It’s against the law to shoot pellet guns or BB guns in the city limits,” Jones said emphatically.

Payne noted that he was not anti-gun.

“Pro-gun, I’m all about it,” he said.

But he also noted that he has a wife and two kids at home – and another child on the way.