A 67-year-old Boulder man faces charges of felony menacing after a 12-year-old boy told police the man pointed a gun at him and told him, “You could be dead,” when the boy strayed into the man’s yard during a game of hide-and-seek.

Boulder police responded to a 911 call about the incident in the 1900 block of Tincup Court around 8 p.m. Friday.

Julie Gerster told police she was hosting a birthday party for her son, and seven or eight boys were playing hide-and-seek in the cul-de-sac when one of the boys came running back to the house crying, according to the police report.

The boy told police that he was in a yard on the corner of the cul-de-sac when an “old man” grabbed him by the arm from behind, pointed a gun at his chest and yelled, “You could be dead,” several times, the report said.

He said the man dragged him into the street, kicked him in the back and said, “Get out of here.”

Police officers canvassed the neighborhood and were told that Paul Staffin, the man who lives in the corner house, has a reputation for yelling at kids and construction workers who come onto his property.

On Friday night, no one answered the door or phone calls to the home, police said. Officers returned to the residence Saturday afternoon, and Staffin told them he hadn’t answered the door because he’d had previous problems with “prowlers” knocking on his door, the report said.

At first, Staffin denied getting in a confrontation with a boy the night before or owning a handgun, the report said. He also had a bandage and splint on his wrist.

According to the report, Staffin eventually admitted to the officers that he did have a pellet-gun revolver that he pointed at the boy to scare him and that the bandages were fakes that he put on his wrist to make it appear less likely that he had pointed a gun at the boy.

Staffin told police he never meant to hurt anyone, and he was embarrassed by his actions, the report said. He then asked if he was going to jail.

“I responded by asking him what he thinks should happen to an adult who points a gun at a 12 (-year-old) boy?” Officer Joel Burick wrote in the report.

“I was hoping you could just warn me, and I will apologize to the neighbors,” Staffin told Burick, according to the report.

Staffin was booked into the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of felony menacing and harassment. A Crosman pellet gun in the style of a revolver was placed into evidence.

Staffin remained in custody Monday afternoon. His bond had not yet been set.

“I sincerely regret my lapse in judgment in this incident,” Staffin wrote in a voluntary statement attached to the police report. “I have been harassed by the teens on the street with snowballs, trespass, etc. In this case, I snapped and took inappropriate action.”