Hands scraped and bloody from climbing two barbed-wire fences and out of breath from a half-mile sprint, James Clithero called 9-1-1 about 5 p.m. Thursday from a stranger's home in Southeast Portland.

He was reporting that his boss had just gunned down a co-worker.

"I was in there working today and my boss came downstairs and started firing a gun at one of the employees," he told the dispatcher.Portland police responded in force, scrambling officers in nine patrol cars to the scene, the Art Heads custom picture framing warehouse in the 5000 block of Southeast 18th Avenue, said Mary Wheat, a Portland Police Bureau spokeswoman.

But when officers cautiously approached the business with rifles and shotguns in hand, they were surprised by what they saw: Four men playing football.

Thirty minutes later, after police left, the boss and co-owner, Chad Paranto, 35, and three workers stood in the business's gravel parking lot, shaken but somewhat amused.

They explained that the shooting was a prank, like a version of the MTV practical-joke show "Punk'd."

Clithero, 24, had walked into the warehouse to do some cleaning when he saw Paranto appearing to argue with another employee.

"He was yelling at me about a screwed-up order," said the supposed victim, who declined to give his name.

The staged argument escalated and Paranto pulled out a gun, pointed it at the man and shot him.

Or so Clithero thought. The weapon was nothing more than a cap gun.

Clithero immediately bolted into the rail yards next to the warehouse. He climbed two fences and a few minutes later was crouched behind a van in the driveway of a home in the 4200 block of Southeast 24th Avenue, about a half-mile away. The homeowner spotted Clithero with blood on his hands and let him into his home.

"My hand's cut and it's bleeding from the razor wire," he said on the 9-1-1 tape.

As Clithero began to catch his breath, he identified Paranto as the shooter but began to suspect he might not know all the facts.

"I feel like something was going on there. I don't know what," he said. "But I feel like I was the only person there who didn't know what was going on."

"(Paranto's) a really nice guy, he's a good boss. I have no idea why this happened. He's like my favorite boss at any job that I've had."

Friday afternoon, Paranto said the employees at Art Heads often play practical jokes.

"We like to have fun in the shop and horse around," he said. "It keeps up morale."

Wheat said police did not cite any of the men in the incident.

As for Clithero, he was resting Friday afternoon from his injuries, a family member said.

And Paranto said he posted large signs around the warehouse Friday: "No Horseplay."

-- Michael Russell: 503-294-5013; michaelrussell@news.oregonian.com

