A film shoot about a Nassau County Police detective had more officers on the scene than the director wanted.
Fred Carpenter was directing a scene from his movie about a Nassau County Police detective ,"Jesse," at a Bellmore convenience store on Tuesday. Since he was shooting on private property, he never notified police of the shoot.
The scene focuses on a gunman taking people hostage inside the store. Someone driving by saw the commotion and called police. Carpenter soon had more officers than he intended for the scene.
"All of a sudden I'm directing and 15 police officers come in," Carpenter told the Associated Press. "And for a moment I'm thinking it's part of the movie and then I said, wait a minute, I wrote the movie and this wasn't in the film. And it was like, insanity."
Police say it could have been tragic. When police arrived, the gunman was in the store still holding the fake gun in his hand. A Nassau County Police spokesperson said officers "showed great restraint" in defusing the situation.
The film stars Burt Young, best known for his role of 'Paulie' in the "Rocky" movies.
For now, the shoot has been rescheduled and Carpenter says he learned his lesson and will notify police.
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"They're here to protect us and something bad could have happened," Carpenter said, "We were so close to the highway, I guess we didn't realize that people would be looking in."
