Same behavior, different outcomes?

I wonder how this event was different from this one?

In the first (most recent) story, an elected city councilman who held an alleged thief at gunpoint was himself arrested because the police saw him pointing the gun at the suspect. In the second (older) story, a state senator held four teens he suspected of having broken into a warehouse he owned at gunpoint. The story says he "brandished" the gun and told the suspects to "put their hands up", then gave them chocolate chip cookies. It doesn't say anything about the state senator pointing the gun or what the arriving sheriff's deputies saw.

I guess the moral of the story is, if you're going to hold someone at gunpoint, don't let law enforcement see you pointing the gun, and give your suspects chocolate chip cookies.