Police are calling it a “gun scare” in South Bend.

Officers were called Monday to a neighborhood where people had said a man was walking around with a shotgun wearing dark clothes and a mask. Police got there and a stand-off lasted four hours on the side of a road in which police had trouble communicating with the man.

It appeared the man was using sign language but otherwise refused to talk to police.

“He refused to talk to our officers, so they then called for assistance. Multiple jurisdictions arrived just to determine what, if anything, was going on,” said St. Joseph County Sheriff Bill Redman.

Later on police were able to figure out the gun the man was carrying was an airsoft gun. That’s when they let him go.

“There was no criminal act,” Redman emphasized. “He did not threaten himself, and he did not threaten our law enforcement officers. He was just walking down the side of the road here on Capital when we got the call, so that’s why we initiated the original investigation.”

But that was not the last they saw of the man. South Bend Police say the man was arrested later on that evening in a separate incident. The man’s name is not being released and it’s not clear exactly what happened.