BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A 23-year-old man, Thomas Wright, was shot by state troopers in Olean early Wednesday morning after allegedly pointing a BB gun at them.
The incident occurred when troopers responded to reports of a suicidal individual. Wright, who was previously accused of a similar act three years ago, was shot multiple times and remained in guarded condition at ECMC as of Thursday.
State Police Major Amie Feroleto showed a photo of the weapon at Wednesday’s news conference that police say body camera footage shows Wright pointing at a trooper.
"This is the BB gun, as you can see it looks very much like a real gun," Feroleto said.
Jeff Rinaldo, a retired Buffalo police captain and vice president of the Tarian Group, said it’s nearly impossible for a police officer to determine in a split second whether these guns are real.
"There's no magic 8 ball that can tell a police officer that there's no way to identify that is not being a real firearm," he said.
Rinaldo took a look at a photo of the BB gun that Wright was allegedly holding.
"Yeah, I mean...even looking at a picture in a calm circumstance, I couldn't tell you sitting here that that's not a real firearm," he said.
Fake weapons have been involved in several incidents in Western New York. In August 2023, a Buffalo man was killed after being shot with an air gun. The following month, Buffalo police shot and wounded a man holding a pellet gun to his head. In 2021, a school lockdown was triggered by a student bringing a BB gun to school.
Rinaldo, who responded to that incident, recounted what he saw that day.
“That obviously caused the entire school to go into lockdown and it required a large police presence," he said. "The students had to be detained, they had to be searched, the entire building had to be searched until we were able to locate that weapon."
He emphasized the importance of treating these realistic-looking weapons as if they were real firearms, especially by parents.
"Cases like this just reemphasize the need for people and parents especially to ensure that if they are purchasing these or allowing, you know, kids to play with these that they really should be treated as if they're an actual firearm," Rinaldo said.
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