The Associated Press
LIMA, Ohio- Police responding to a caller who mistook a judo class training exercise for a hostage situation at a gymnasium stopped a passing car and pulled their guns on the driver, her four children, her fiance and a family friend.
The telephone caller saw someone wearing a ski mask enter the class inside the Young Men’s Chrisitan Association on Oct. 11 with a toy gun and order everyone down on the floor, police Maj. James Thorburn said Wednesday.
The caller told police the gunman fled in a car with the same description and license plate number as one driven by Petrona Ashman as she left her job at the YMCA that day.
Police pulled the car over about a block from the YMCA. Ashman, 33, was in the vehicle with her 2-year-old twins, 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, her fiance and a family friend. They were ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint, and some police officers used profanity, she said.
No one in the car was part of the class, and Thorburn said he doesn’t know why the caller thought the gunman got in that vehicle.
Ashman has filed a complaint with the police. The department will investigate, but Thorburn said the officers followed standard procedures in stopping someone suspected of a felony.
Officers took the 5-year-old and 9-year-old out of the vehicle because they did not know if they were safe or if they had been kidnapped by the gunman, Thorburn said.
Lima is 70 miles (112 kilometers) southwest of Toledo.