The 16-year-old kid wearing a sheet on his body and a towel on his head, who ran around a Phoenix intersection with a fake rocket-propelled grenade launcher, was Michael Turley's own nephew, according to court documents obtained by New Times.
Turley was arrested after police discovered he allegedly put his nephew up to this to "test" the Phoenix Police Department's response to a terrorist situation.
See also:
-Michael Turley Wanted to "Test" Phoenix Cops -- With a Kid Dressed as a Terrorist Running Around With a Fake Grenade Launcher
According to those documents, Turley's nephew was contacted by police on Monday, and he told police that Turley put him up to the task of playing terrorist in a Phoenix intersection, near Bell Road and 35th Avenue.
Turley told his nephew "to be quick [and] that it was dangerous," according to the documents. Not surprisingly, the kid walking around dressed as a terrorist and carrying a fake rocket-propelled grenade launcher told police he felt like he was in danger.
At Turley's initial appearance, a prosecutor told the judge he'd never seen anything so unusual, and added that it could've been a fatal situation.
Turley doesn't have a criminal history, according to the prosecutor, but his bond was set at $5,000.
His nephew -- who hasn't been named -- also has charges pending against him.
According to the court documents, nine separate people called 9-1-1 upon witnessing the boy in character, and numerous patrol officers, officers from Phoenix's Special Assignment Unit, and a helicopter unit ended up responding to the incident.
After detaining both of them, police were told that the two of them were just "making a movie."
It wasn't until recently that police discovered they were trying to test the cops' response to a terrorist situation -- which they then turned into a movie, according to Phoenix police Officer James Holmes. That video can be seen at the end of this post.
Turley faces charges of knowingly giving a false impression of a terrorist act, endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and misconduct involving a simulated explosive.
