boy charged after highway paintball shooting spree

The Ontario Provincial Police have charged a 16-year-old Ontario boy with weapons-related offences, following a terrifying shooting spree on Highway 401 near Toronto Sunday.

Investigators say they received several phone calls Sunday afternoon from witnesses that a boy was sitting in the passenger side of a pickup truck, shooting at cars on the multi-lane highway near Port Union Road, just west of Pickering, Ont. An as-yet unidentified man was driving.

"The phone calls were quite frantic," OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley said Monday. "Everybody who called was terrified for their lives."

He said cars driving along one of North America's busiest highway were braking and swerving to avoid the shots.

Fourteen OPP cruisers, along with the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force, were called in to respond to the call.

Police were able to locate the pickup truck a while later, and found that the gun used was actually a paintball gun that closely resembled a real assault rifle.

"It looks like a real gun," Woolley said. "It was being fired at cars going at 100 km/h. Any person, even a gun expert, would have believed it to be real."

He said it was fortunate that no one was injured.

"It could have broken windows on cars, and the paint itself could have hit the drivers," Woolley said. "We were quite relieved that no one was injured."

"We got the impression that they thought it was a practical joke," Woolley said. "We don't think that this is funny. It was considered a genuine call about someone firing an assault rifle."

It is not illegal to own a paintball gun but it is an offence to point it at someone who believes it to be a real weapon, he added.

The 16-year-old, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, faces nine criminal charges.

Investigators are also looking into charging the man who was driving the rented pickup truck.