Just think what might have happened if a concealed carry holder had thought this were real and reacted without thinking it through.Even drawing a weapon without actually firing.

http://www.richmond.com/news/l...01-d2fc122564d1.html

Police say charges haven't been ruled out for friends who staged and filmed phony abduction at Midlothian Walmart

Chesterfield County police say a reported abduction outside the Midlothian Walmart Sunday night was a "planned hoax" that the purported female "victim" and her four male "captors" filmed in a video they planned to post online.

The young woman who appeared to have escaped from the trunk of a car and the four young men who appeared to be her captors - all 19 to 20 years old - know each other, police said in a release.

"After eating dinner nearby, the group went to the rear of the Walmart parking lot to plan the incident," police said. "They planned to film the staged abduction and the reaction of onlookers and post the video online. After they staged the abduction, they left the area together."
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Reached today, Capt. Jay Thornton said one of the young men who was observed on surveillance video walking from Walmart to the car where the young woman jumped from the trunk was filming the incident as he walked towards the car. He was talking with one of his friends in the car as he filmed, Thornton added.

"I viewed that and it's not very good film," Thornton said. "There's a lot of jumping around and movement and I didn't hear any sound on it. So I don't know what they would have accomplished putting that online."

The stunt fell apart Monday after police released to the media several surveillance photos of the five friends participating in the "abduction." Some of the photos appear to show the woman running from the trunk of the car and at least one of the men giving chase.

After the young woman saw herself in local news coverage, she and one of the young men who staged the incident walked into a Chesterfield police station off Hull Street Road Monday evening to let authorities know she was not abducted.

"In my line of work, a lot of times we're skeptical," Thornton said. "But when we were at the point of viewing video from the Walmart that overlooked the parking lot, we were at a disadvantage because we can't hear what's going."

"We got different witnesses who see different things from different perspectives who tell was what they saw," Thornton said. "And sometimes it matches up and sometimes it doesn't. So we did have people who thought it actually was real, and then we had other people who said they thought it might have been a stunt. But we had to err on the side of caution, for obvious reasons."

Police were called Sunday about 9 p.m. to the store at 900 Walmart Way, just off Midlothian Turnpike, where several witnesses reported that a four-door sedan with Virginia license plates pulled up to the entrance on the store’s grocery side and a man approached the vehicle.

As the man opened one of the car’s doors, the trunk popped opened and a woman jumped out and fled, witnesses told Chesterfield police.

"I think he was part of the signal, that when he got to the car (that) the young lady was to leave the trunk," Thornton said.

Two men then exited the vehicle and chased the woman, while the man who initially approached the car got inside with the driver, the witnesses reported.

Witnesses said the two men who chased the woman eventually caught her, and she struggled with them as they forced her through the parking lot and back into the vehicle. It’s unclear whether she was put back in the trunk.

The car, which appeared to be sea foam green in color, then left the parking lot at a high rate of speed, the witnesses told police.

But the whole thing was staged.

"We are in a way relieved that it worked out this way," Thornton said. "We just hope in the future that people would use better judgment before tying up resources and even taking a chance on somebody in the parking lot intervening inappropriately. I mean that could have gone really bad."

Thornton said he's sure the teens expressed some contrition for that they did, "but I don't know how much or how understanding they are of the seriousness of what could have happened."

Police said the matter remains under investigation and charges haven't been ruled out.

"We're looking at that," Thornton said. "We're trying to interpret what the statutes say, but that's still under investigation. Right now there's no charges forthcoming."

"We're just glad it wasn't real, and we did find somebody safe at the end of all that," Thornton said.

Stupid ass kids