Amar Dedić was spotted carrying a bow and arrows near a reservoir outside Newcastle, and at least six patrol cars were sent after him. The incident has put football's oddest and most troubling weapon headlines back into view. The list is a grim one, with stories that range from absurd to genuinely dangerous.
Amar Dedić's incident and the wider list
The Newcastle defender is the news peg, but the wider gallery is what gives the story weight. M. Bent was tasered in his own home after threatening armed police officers with a meat cleaver and kitchen knife while under the influence of cocaine. Bent later told dailymail.com: "I was paranoid and I was hallucinating. I felt there were people in my house. I remember thinking the door handle was moving.
At no point was I ever going to take someone's life. I called them because I was hallucinating, paranoid, terrified."
Ashley Cole accidentally shot 21-year-old student Tom Cowan with a .22 air rifle from just five feet away at Chelsea's Cobham training ground in 2011. Darren Bent was arrested in May 2004 after a 12-year-old boy was struck by a pellet from a BB gun in Kesgrave. Karim Adeyemi was fined £396,000 in 2025 for possessing brass knuckles, paid in 60 daily payments of £6,600, while Diego Maradona injured four people when he fired an air rifle at journalists and photographers in Buenos Aires in February 1994.
Dortmund said it treats criminal allegations seriously and addresses them internally while respecting confidentiality. Dedić's case sits alongside those episodes without being the same thing, and the central fact remains the one that started it: police were sent after he was seen with a bow and arrows near a reservoir outside Newcastle.
Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →
