Maxwell Elementary School in Anaheim was on lockdown this morning after a bullet whizzed by campus.
Now we know what apparently sparked the shooting:
Cigarette butts.
]
John Bennem, 68, of Anaheim, was arrested this morning on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and making criminal threats.
According to Anaheim police, Bennem pointed a handgun at his adult son while ordering him to look at cigarette butts the younger man left in the backyard of Bennem's home in the 2700 block of West Savoy Place. While his boy was in the yard, Bennem allegedly fired a shot that did not hit anything.
The old man apparently retreated into his home, while the younger man reported the incident to the cops. The school and West Savoy Place were shut down for a half hour before Bennem surrendered to officers around 9 a.m. Police say they also recovered a gun from the Bennem home.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.