Heavily-Armed Gunman Terrifies Shoppers At Springfield Walmart

Heavily-Armed Gunman Terrifies Shoppers At Springfield Walmart

Heavily-Armed Gunman Terrifies Shoppers At Springfield Walmart

Springfield Police were called to an active shooter situation Thursday afternoon where a man carrying a tactical rifle, a sidearm, and wearing body armor and military-style fatigues walked into the Walmart Neighborhood Market at Republic and Golden.

Lieutenant Mike Lucas says the man, who is 20, pulled up to the store around 4:10 p.m., got out of his vehicle and walked through the store.

The store manager pulled the fire alarm, and shoppers ran outside into the parking lot.

Lucas says the man was using his cellphone to video himself as he pushed a shopping cart through the store, talking to people at the same time.

Police aren’t sure what threats he made.

When the other shoppers went outside, the man followed them.

That’s when a former firefighter saw the man and pulled his own gun.

Police say he challenged the man and he backed down.

Police arrived about the same time and arrested him.

Lucas says the scene was chaos with people hiding out behind barriers to stay safe.

He says he doesn’t know what the man intended to do, but he definitely caused a lot of panic inside the store.

Police say the man’s weapons were loaded.

He had over 100-rounds of ammunition on him when he was arrested.

Police were checking to see if the man live-streamed his walk through the store on social media.

They were also checking his vehicle to see if more weapons and ammo were inside.

Lucas says the man is lucky to be alive.

He says with everything that’s gone on recently with mass shootings across the country he’s glad no one was hurt.

Walmart released a statement:

“The behavior of a customer was concerning to those inside our store and out of caution, law enforcement was contacted.    They quickly arrived, managed the situation without further incident and no one was injured.”

 

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