Violent YouTube videos made by teens lead to warnings from police

Teens accused of trespassing in Brunswick

Published  11:22 AM EST Jan 16, 2013

A bit of a reprieve came for some teenagers from Brunswick who found themselves in hot water recently for shooting action films around town.

Officials at Brunswick's Curtis Memorial Library said they've decided not to enforce the criminal trespass warnings they asked police to issue to more than a dozen young filmmakers after a violent video surfaced.

However, the young filmmakers are still not welcome at Brunswick Landing and police still don't like the idea of students running around with guns, even if the guns are fake and the scenes are just part of a movie.

Millions of people have watched the filmmakers' works on YouTube. The creator of USN Films, Paul Kousky, 17, said his contract with Google to sell ads is quite lucrative.

"I should be set for college if I don't get any scholarships," said Kousky.

Kousky and Angelo Gerardi are both honor students and are working toward becoming Eagle Scouts.

The boys and their friends have been producing movies for a while now.

"There is detailed planning going into the videos.  There's extreme processing going on.  There's a lot of acting going on.  People are trying and we're being safe about it," said Gerardi.

But concerns about safety are what brought these young filmmakers to the attention of Brunswick police recently.

On Friday, police issued criminal trespass warning to the movie-makers because the teens had shot scenes at Brunswick Landing and the public library without permission.

"We didn't really try to hide it.  We didn't sneak in and try to film a video and get out.  There was a librarian on site who knew that we were filming.  The library was open," said Kousky.

Police Chief Richard Rizzo said he's worried about what could happen if someone called the cops because of the staged gunplay.

"We don't recognize that the weapons that they have are very realistic-looking -- are pretend and we warn them to drop the gun and they don't do it quickly enough and the officer feels threatened and then something tragic happens," said Rizzo.

Library officials are now saying almost all of the students are welcome to come back, just without anything that resembles a weapon.

"We have great kids in our community.  We have enterprising kids in our community.  We have kids who are being creative.  We want to be supportive of that but, in the wake of what happens around us in society, we also have to make sure that we keep people safe," said Peter Lowe with Curtis Memorial Library.
Kousky and Gerardi aren't sure if they want to pursue filmmaking long term.

Gerardi is thinking about a career in law enforcement.

Kousky has already been accepted early to the U.S. Naval Academy.

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