Posted on 03/11/2021 11:21:07 AM PST by real saxophonist
Lakewood mom held at gunpoint because of inaccurate 911 call and her baby’s toy gun
by: Lori Jane Gliha
Updated: Mar 11, 2021
LAKEWOOD, Colo. (KDVR) – Several Lakewood police agents held a woman and her boyfriend at gunpoint in January after the police received false information that someone in the couple’s car had threatened a Walmart asset protection employee with a gun.
“I hate to say it, but I actually played the scenario in my head of shots going off,” said Celeste Lopez, a mother of four boys. “I could feel it, like, my heart started racing. I could feel the adrenaline.”
When police pulled them over, Lopez, who had just given birth days earlier, was in the car with her then-boyfriend and two of her four sons, including 1-year-old Louie and an infant named Ace. They had just finished a shopping trip to the Walmart on the 7400 block of West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood.
“When they yelled, ‘Gun!’ I felt like, ‘What gun?’ You know?” said Lopez, who told the FOX31 Problem Solvers she was asked to lay prone on the ground while police told them their car had been linked to an armed robbery.
“We were pretty surrounded,” Lopez said.
Moments earlier, a Walmart asset protection employee, who said she was suspicious that Lopez had stolen something, had followed Lopez into the parking lot to get her license plate and was spooked by Louie’s toy gun, as the child played with it in the front seat.
She called 911.
“Hi, I have a shoplift in progress,” the store employee told a 911 operator. “They pulled a gun on me,” she said. “The person in the driver’s seat has a gun.”
The operator asked, “And did they point it at you?” The employee responded, “Yeah.”
At the time, the only person in the driver’s seat of the parked car was the 1-year-old, who was playing with his toy.
No crime committed
As police would later discover, no one stole anything from the store.
Lopez, who can be seen in Walmart surveillance video purchasing items through a typical check-out line and leaving the store with a cart filled with bagged groceries, had not shoplifted anything.
During the course of her 911 call, the Walmart employee eventually admitted to the operator that she had not seen the person with the gun.
“They held the gun outside of the window,” she said to the dispatcher.
“So, the person that had the gun – I want you to describe them. Asian? Black? Hispanic? Native? White?” the operator asked.
“I did not see the person,” said the Walmart employee.
The dispatcher asked whether the person had pointed the gun at the caller. “No.” she said. “They just – they hung it outside the window when I went to go get their plates.”
By this time, the police had already been dispatched with the information that a “robbery just occurred at gunpoint.”
A spokesperson for the Lakewood Police Department said agents responded to the situation with their duty weapons because they received information that a felony had just occurred with a deadly weapon.
“We have the situation that was given to us at hand – that someone would have a gun – so we would respond with our guns as well because the threat is there,” said John Romero, a public information officer for the Lakewood Police Department.
Although Lopez insists the guns were pointed at both adults and at Louie, Romero said the agents on the scene did not point any weapons at the boy.
“From what I understand, weapons were never pointed at a child. The weapons were pointed at the adults who were pulled out of the car because of the report we received that someone in the car threatened, I believe, an employee of the store with a gun,” he said.
“It’s unfortunate all the way around,” he said. “That said, I’m very proud of the way our agents handled it and were able to de-escalate that situation so quickly.”
Lopez said the agents were trying to instruct her son to put the gun down, but he didn’t understand what to do.
“They actually said, ‘Slap the gun out of his hand now,’” she said. “He’s a baby. He don’t know.”
Lopez said she feared that her son could have been shot.
“It just breaks my heart…every time I replay it. I really wish (the Walmart employee) took the time to say, ‘I really think you’re stealing.’”
Walmart Response
A Walmart spokesperson apologized for the incident. Payton McCormick, a spokesperson for the company, issued the following statement:
“Our goal is for every customer to have a pleasant and safe shopping experience at all our stores and we have training and policies in place to make sure that happens. In this case, the incident was escalated unnecessarily and we apologize for the situation. We are following up with the store to ensure all policies are being upheld.”
Someone’s gonna get fired and one family is going to be soooooo rich......
Sounds like the employee is either malicious or insane.
And the story doesn’t make any sense. According to the employee, the mom was shoplifting so the employee went out to her car to get her plate? How did the employee know which car it was BEFORE the shopper came out of the store?
The cops know only what they are told by the dispatcher, who knows only what is discussed on the phone call. Much room for misunderstandings. The person who made the phone call perceived the situation in a way that differed from actual reality.
The little kid could have been killed for playing with a toy that was in the shape of a gun. I’m surprised no charges were brought. Against the kid.
So the real villain in the story is the lying Walmart employee, who didn’t actually see any shoplifting, just “suspected it”, and then lied to the police to try to get them to do something to the people he didn’t like because he knew he had no justification to do anything himself.
I hate to break it to you, but that isn’t how the law works. You have to prove damages. So many people think that lawsuits are like the lottery. That just because someone claims that they are going to get “millions” that they will. Those cases are extraordinarily rare and damages in those cases are usually extreme.
One even brought his SWAT rifle to the scene.
What the hell is a 'SWAT rifle'?
Four children and no husband. She should get a pretty big Biden check.
“had followed Lopez into the parking lot to get her license plate”
1) Fire the hoplophobic W employee.
2) Retrain the cop dispatcher.
3) Get the nasty-azz, savage attorney, and SUE “W” for a bloody fortune — enough to put the kids through med school, AND buy a nice new house, AND put 2megabux in a trust for parent’s income.
4) Call media and weep on camera.
5) Consider further (profitable) action.
73
Yes, but it’s a she.
It wasn’t just shaped like a gun - from 10 feet away it would look like a real revolver. Wal-Mart was clearly in the wrong here but I personally would not let a 1 year old be playing in public with a realistic looking toy gun. Just out of caution.
If you owned it, it would be an 'assault rifle' to the leftwing press. but then again, they might call a BB gun that. So let's go with 'scary black gun' even it it isn't black.
The way I read it the employee followed the mom out of the store to her car.
The optics look bad for Walmart..Even if not millions,they will give them something for their ‘suffering’..Just to make sure when the story bubbles up again and again,it will be written that Walmart did reach out to ease their suffering.....
“Sounds like the employee is either malicious or insane.”
Typical Biden voter.
That Walmart employee is an idiot!
A spokesperson for the Lakewood Police Department said agents responded to the situation with their duty weapons because they received information that a felony had just occurred with a deadly weapon.What is an "agent" and why don't they always carry?
Probably a rifle that you slap a cool “SWAT” decal on.
Besides, the kid might put his eye out.
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