Hutchinson ? A group of high school journalism students filming a mock robbery got a real lesson when police pulled over the car they were in and forced them to the ground.

The students, studying TV journalism, used a water pistol Thursday to film a mock robbery, said Assistant Police Chief Dave Higdon and Hutchinson High School Principal Ronn Roehm.

Bystanders near the Hutchinson YMCA, however, thought it was the real thing and called police about 11 a.m. to report a man with a gun.

Before the students could tell their story, the officers who stopped their car conducted what Higdon called a “felony car stop,” pulling their weapons, hauling the students out of the car and forcing them onto the ground.

“I’d say the kids got the point about the water pistol,” Higdon said.

The students were filming the mock robbery the same day school officials were busy quelling unfounded rumors of a gang shooting, police and school officials said. The rumored gang shooting apparently grew out of graffiti Wednesday at the high school, police said.

Teacher Kevin Kneisley said the students left his classroom Thursday to film under an approved part of the curriculum, though he acknowledged that it was “the wrong time and the wrong place” for a realistic re-enactment of a robbery.

Roehm said Kneisley did not know what his students had planned for the film, so no disciplinary action against the teacher is planned.

School policy provides for the suspension of a student who brings mock weapons to the campus, but Roehm said no such action would be taken against the owner of the water pistol.

“I can’t say too much about a student’s discipline,” he said. “But this one won’t be an expulsion. It’s a class project, poor judgment, but no malicious involvement.”