Moments after he pulled out the small laptop, the workers say Longton also pulled out a handgun and charged toward the closed office door. Ray, Richins and Stewart were in the way. He grabbed Stewart as his way to get out.
He looked right at me and said, 'The gun is cocked. C'mon guys, just let me go. I don't want to do this,'" Shawn Ray recalled..."
Based on this series of events, I have to disagree with 1911 and some others.
1) Perp pulls gun.
2) Perp takes hostage.
3) Perp demands to be let loose.
Of note, the perp didn't make his demand
until after he had taken a hostage. I mean, we can backseat drive this all day long, but suggesting anything else is calling the four witnesses liars with little more than your opinion as an argument. Likewise, 'being in the way' implies nothing more than that, and there's a wide specturm of meanings to choose from. Most notably, they simply may not have had
time to get out of the way,
The moment he took that hostage, all bets are off.
Congratulations, walmart. You are punishing these four for exactly what the passengers of Flight 93 did... In case anybody missed that, that's keeping an armed thief from running around the store with your childern and spouses while taking his word he's just going to leave or assuming he's psychologically stable enough not to snap.
Yes, it was dicey. It could have easily gone wrong. But I'll say it right now... It's a job at walmart, of all places. Tell them to sit and spin. Everybody else thanks you. I certainly wouldn't want to work for a corporation that, and I quote:
"I'm surprised they would be fired they're defending their lives," said David Lundberg, who was a police officer for 21 years, has additional security experience and now runs Utahdetective.com.