NY attorney general takes aim at fake guns

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced on Thursday that his office sent cease and desist letters to several retailers for allegedly selling banned toy guns that were "indistinguishable from the real thing" online and, in some cases, in stores. Authorities said such toys could be "easily mistaken for real weapons" by both law enforcement and the public.

Schneiderman’s office said in a news release that the action is part its ongoing investigation into the circulation of illegal toy guns across the state. The attorney general's office also called on retailers Walmart, Amazon, Sears, K-Mart and the website ToyArsenal.com "to immediately stop the in-store and online sale and shipment to New Yorkers of toy guns that violate New York state law."

"When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences," Schneiderman said in a news release. "New York State law is clear: retailers cannot put children and law enforcement at risk by selling toy guns that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing."

New York law bans the sale of toy guns in "realistic colors," including silver, black and blue. The exception to the rule is if toy guns in those colors have a "non-removeable, one-inch wide orange stripe running down both sides of the barrel," the attorney general's office said.

Schneiderman's office said the toys, which ranged in price from $10 to hundreds of dollars, were sold online and in one case at a K-Mart near Rochester, N.Y.

In response, a Walmart spokesman told Al Jazeera: "Once this matter was brought to our attention we placed a shipping block on our website to prevent the mentioned items from being sent to the state of New York. We’re also confident that measures are in place to prevent these items from being sold at our New York stores."

A spokesman for Sears Holdings, which owns both Sears and Kmart, released a statement saying that "the safety of our customers is a top priority."

"We are in the process of immediately removing any non-compliant toy guns that are offered for sale by Sears or Kmart to New York consumers,” it read. “We will fully cooperate with the New York Attorney General in its investigation."

Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Wednesday's announcement comes in the wake of two separate incidents in Ohio involving an air rifle and a pellet gun earlier this year.

On Aug. 5, police shot and killed 22-year-old John Crawford III inside a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio as he carried an unpackaged air rifle that he reportedly picked up from a store shelf. Authorities responded to the store following a 911 call that reported that Crawford was waving what appeared to be a real gun. Police said they shot Crawford after he didn't respond to repeated calls to drop what turned out to be the air rifle.

In a separate incident, police shot dead 12-year-old Tamir Rice outside a recreation center in Cleveland, Ohio on Nov. 22 after police responded to a 911 call about a gun at the playground. Police later released surveillance video that showed a Cleveland police officer shooting Rice within seconds after the officer got out of the patrol car responding to the scene.

Both of those incidents, which involved white police officers and African-American victims, also added to the firestorm of anger and nationwide demonstrations over other shootings by law enforcement in which young black men were killed.

The Crawford and Rice families have filed lawsuits. The Crawford family filed a federal suit earlier this week, targeting the police officers involved in the incident as well as the police chief and Walmart, accusing them of negligence and civil rights violations.

Rice's family also sued earlier this month, saying that the police officers responding to the scene had acted recklessly in shooting the boy.

With The Associated Press