22-year-old man arrested for pointing gun-like bottle of vodka at motorists

The police in Amsterdam arrested a 22-year-old man from Nieuw-Vennep on Saturday evening, with officers drawing their service weapon. Police had been alerted by motorists who saw a van driving on the A4 around 6:15 p.m. and thought someone was pointing a gun at passing cars.

But inside the van, the police found a vodka bottle shaped like an automatic firearm. The bottle "clearly looks like a firearm, but it is not," police said on Sunday. "From a distance, a fake firearm, or in this case a liquor bottle in the shape of a firearm, is indistinguishable from a real one and can lead to unnecessary casualties.”

After the van was searched, the 22-year-old Haarlemmermeer, who was aiming the alcohol bottle at people, was taken to the police station, while the other people who were in the car with him did not have to go to the police station, according to the police.

However, the consequence of the possible presence of a firearm was that the police took the necessary precautions to stop the van. This was done with service weapons drawn on the Pieter Braaijweg, an industrial area west of Duivendrecht. Some uninvolved passersby inadvertently came into the officers' line of fire, police acknowledged. "The impact on bystanders and on the reporters at whom the alleged weapon is pointed is great. Therefore, always leave this type of 'weapon' at home," the police stressed.