Man Arrested For Fake Terrorist Video, Made 8 Days After Batman Premiere Shooting [VIDEO]

Phoenix, AZ – Just eight days had passed since the Colorado movie-theater shooting when Michael David Turley filmed his 16-year-old nephew walking the streets with a fake grenade launcher, dressed in a sheet, with dark fabric covering his head and face. On the film, an unidentified narrator states he wants to “find out how safe I really am,” by staging a fake terrorist attack and timing police response time.

Terrible idea. First of all, Turley was arrested for making the video, and for dragging his underage nephew into the mess. Secondly, what an incredibly insensitive thing to do just a little over a week after the violent mass murder at the Colorado theater’s premier of Batman. Of course, according to Turley, the Colorado shooting was exactly why he made the video in the first place. According to Fox News, the filmmaker said he “wanted to see how quickly the cops would react.”

So maybe that was a terrible idea, but as it turns out, the timer on the video recorded that it took about 15 minutes for police to arrive on scene. Yikes. If Turley were actually a terrorist, he could do a lot of damage in fifteen minutes, assuming that grenade launcher was real.

Fox News reports: “The filmmaker was arrested on suspicion of knowingly giving a false impression of a terrorist attack, endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. ” Police are also considering charging the 16-year-old. He is, after all, old enough to have a mind of his own in a situation like this.

The NBC Today video, which can be viewed below, shows a man with a grenade launcher walking around a busy Phoenix intersection, wearing what seems to be a a dark head covering and a white tunic of sorts. The amateur video, reports Reuters, was broadcast on YouTube under the title, “Dark Knight Shooting Response, Rocket Launcher Police Test.”

Readers: What do you think? Was this a legitimate way to get police’s attention after the Colorado shooting? Or is this guy just an insensitive jerk who should face some jail time?

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