Man with fake gun causes real fear

WASILLA — A toy gun caused a heap of trouble here, scaring at least a half-dozen residents and landing a man in jail for felony assault.

According to an affidavit Wasilla Police Department Officer Christian McCormick filed in the case against Michael Edward Manning, 37, it all began with a call for help from the Windbreak Café at 10 p.m., Oct. 16.

At the café, a man told officers he and his three friends were sitting in the restaurant when he heard a banging on the window and watched a man police report was later identified as Manning put a cigarette out on the glass.

The man said Manning took a few steps back from the window, pulled a gun out of his waistband, and pointed it at him and his friends.

The man yelled, “gun!” to warn his friends.

“The four of them dropped to the floor and started to army-crawl to the kitchen,” McCormick wrote. Then, the man “ran into the bar area of the restaurant and yelled ‘gun!’ to notify the other patrons there was a man with a gun.”

The man told officers Manning had a smile on his face the whole time.

Fifteen minutes later, police dispatchers got word of a man in an Astro van waiving a gun around in the Target parking lot, Manning says in his affidavit.

“Minutes after that incident was aired a third call came in,” McCormick wrote.

This one was from the drive-thru at Carl’s Jr. A man reported he and his girlfriend were getting food when Manning showed up and started screaming and swearing at the couple.

“Manning yelled, ‘I have a gun’ and (the man) looked and saw a handgun that Manning was pointing at them,” McCormick wrote.

Police say they soon found the Astro van in the Fred Meyer parking lot. Officer Jason Holmgren tried to pull it over on the Parks Highway as it drove northbound.

Manning didn’t stop. According to McCormick’s affidavit, he led a group of Wasilla police officers that eventually included four patrol cars on a brief chase to Crusey Street, into the McDonald’s parking lot and through the Carrs parking lot.

He eventually gave up at Herning Avenue and Yenlo Street, where he was arrested after declining to talk to police.

A police press statement recounting the case reads, in part: “It was later discovered the weapon was a black plastic toy gun with the red tip removed so it closely resembled a real gun.”

Manning was charged with five felony assault counts, all for causing fear of injury; a misdemeanor assault count also for causing fear; and one count of failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer.

He was jailed with bail set at $20,000 and an order he find a third party to watch over him before he can be released.

As of Thursday afternoon, he hadn’t been released, but was due in court to talk about bail conditions that afternoon.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.