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| Scene of shooting at Lakewood Walmart (source) |
Police responded to a domestic violence call at the Lakewood, Colorado Walmart store. There, a man identified as Alex Martines, who had a realistic-looking Airsoft pellet gun was threatening a woman, and then he pointed the gun at police. He was shot with bean bag rounds, as well as real bullets, and wounded. It was only afterward that police or the woman found out the gun was a pellet gun.
One officer thought the woman who was threatened was an employee of the store.
From an article and video:
Davis said around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, a woman involved in a domestic dispute with a man called police from a car parked on the east side of the Walmart located on the corner of Wadsworth Boulevard and West Colfax Avenue.
During her call for help, police say the woman told them the man in the car with her had a gun.
When police arrived, they used a loudspeaker to coax the man out of the vehicle. Davis said the man drew a weapon and pointed it at officers.
Two officers fired several shots from their service weapons, but the man would not let go of his weapon so officers then fired bean-bag rounds to knock the weapon out of the man's hands.
Witnesses told 9NEWS they heard a "volley of shots" - about 8 to 12 initially - and then several more shortly after.
Davis said the suspect was hit by the rounds officers fired but would not indicate how many times the suspect was hit by bullets from the officers' service weapons or the bean-bag rounds. Davis did say he believed the suspect's injuries are not life-threatening.
The woman who was in the car with the suspect was not injured and is being interviewed by police.
Neither the woman nor the police knew the man was armed with an air gun instead of real firearm.
There's no good reason to make realistic-looking pellet guns. See THIS article for a quiz to see if you can tell them apart from the real guns.
Walmart. Save money. Die faster.
