In England, so called 'Cops and Robbers' parties have been going on for years. Guests have to dress up as either a cop or a robber and, as often happens, the party-goers tend to be dressed as caricatures - well, it's no fun otherwise, is it?

In Southend, Essex, Converso Contact Center decided to hold a cops and robbers party as a team building event. Unfortunately, the team didn't have time to do very much building at all before their party was swarmed by armed police in bullet proof vests.

Apparently, a witness reported seeing two men in dark clothes taking guns into the building. The guns were very quickly discovered to be toys.

A British Bobby, who seemed to have had his sense of humor surgically removed, commented, "The two men involved clearly did not think about the implications of their actions. This was potentially a very dangerous situation and, as such, armed officers were deployed."

This is called a 'caught in an embarrassing cock-up' response.

UPI