A filmmaker was taking the blame after New York police officers were summoned to what they thought was an armed robbery, but turned out to be a location shoot for his upcoming movie.
The confrontation ended peacefully when officers ordered an actor playing a gunman to drop his weapon.
“I made the mistake,” Fred Carpenter said in a telephone interview. “I was supposed to tell the local police precinct what we were doing.”
Carpenter was filming inside convenience store in Bellmore, on Long Island, on Tuesday morning in a scene in which a gunman takes a number of people hostage. A passer-by apparently thought it was the real thing and called police.
“All of a sudden I’m directing and 15 police officers come in,” Carpenter said. “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.”
Nobody was injured, but police said the outcome could have been tragic.
“The officer went inside, the actor — it turned out to be — still had the gun in his hand,” said Detective Mike Bitzko, a Nassau County police spokesman. He said responding officers “showed great restraint” disarming the situation.
Because he was filming on private property inside the store, officials and Carpenter said he was not required to obtain a county film permit, but Bitzko said police need to be notified about scenes involving gunplay.
Carpenter had praise for the police response and noted his film, “Jesse” is about a fictional Nassau County police detective named Jessica Weinstein who investigates the death of her brother. One of the film’s stars is Burt Young, best known for his role in “Rocky.” The actor who played the gunman was Mike Tattoo, Carpenter said.
“When you’re doing independent films, you’re working on budgets of a couple hundred grand or less,” he said. “We try to use as many private locations as possible. We were so close to the highway, I guess we didn’t realize that people would be looking in.”
He said he would reschedule the shoot and promised to contact police ahead of time.
“They’re there to protect us and something bad could have happened.”
Christopher Nolan’s Next Film Is Based On “The Odyssey”
Christopher Nolan is following his Oscar-winning "Oppenheimer" with a true epic: Homer's "The Odyssey." It will open in theaters on July 17, 2026, Universal Pictures said Monday.
Details remain scarce, but the studio teased that it will be a "mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX technology." It will also be the first time that an adaptation of Homer's saga will play on IMAX film screens.
Nolan has been an IMAX enthusiast for years, going back to "The Dark Knight," and has made his last three films exclusively using large format film and the highest resolution film cameras. For "Oppenheimer," the first black-and-white IMAX film stock was developed. Nolan hasn't said specifically what the new technology for "The Odyssey" will be, but earlier this month he told The Associated Press that they're in an intensive testing phase with IMAX to prepare for the new production.
"They have an incredible engineering staff, really brilliant minds doing extraordinary work," Nolan said. "It's wonderful to see innovation in the celluloid film arena still happening and happening at the highest level possible."
"The Odyssey" will be Nolan's second collaboration with Universal Pictures following "Oppenheimer," which earned nearly $1 billion at the box office and won the filmmaker his first Oscars, including for best director and best picture. Rumors about his next project have been swirling ever since, with near-daily speculations about plot — none of which turned out to be true — and casting. While there are many reports about actors joining the ensemble, none has been officially confirmed by the studio.
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