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Police Kill Suspect in Apparent Hostage Situation at Amarillo, TX Walmart
A SWAT team shot and killed a man who allegedly took hostages at a Walmart in Amarillo, TX Tuesday. According to the Amarillo Police Department, the suspect is a Somali man identified as Mohammed Moghaddam and they found an empty holster and notes with Arabic writing in his vehicle. No one else in the store was reported to have been harmed.
Police said there appears to be no link to Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando and that at this time there is no reason to believe that this was any act of terrorism or in any way linked to a political ideology. Police said they are classifying the incident as an instance of workplace violence.
Nothing to see here, folks.
Employees of nearby businesses went on lockdown and reported a massive police response.
“Over here, we’re good,” she said, “but over there, they have two bomb squad trucks and ambulances and everything. Kind of crazy. No one has been hurt or shot. Now I do see a couple of the people from the bomb squad running around so I’m thinking they’re trying to get around the whole building, to surround it.”
Flores said things happened all of a sudden. “I turned around and all of a sudden everyone, their cars, everyone’s running, I don’t know because we didn’t hear anything over here. We locked all the doors here in the store. The only people I’m allowed to let in are cops or people that are already in here, just in case they run out of the store, because you never know.”
Note to would-be jihadis: A Walmart in Amarillo, TX is the opposite of a “soft target.”
Update: The Amarillo Police Department updated the shooter’s name Tuesday afternoon. The original version of this article cited police scanner reports that his name was Mohammed Khalid.
Published in Islamist Terrorism, Policing
That is outstanding use of non-lethal force and methods.
Well done.
The future Mrs. BrentB67. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Reporter: “Officer! Why did you hit that man with your patrol car!?”
Officer: “My taser wasn’t charged…”
I attended Church Council last night, and one of the topics was Orlando. I was dismayed to hear a lot of talk about the targeting of the gay community and absolutely nothing about who was doing the targeting. The only complaints I heard about religious ideology were from someone who was (rightly) offended by Christian cranks who were apparently paraded on TV saying the victims got what they deserved. Ugly words, yes, but after all, only words. The Council decided that the church’s response to Orlando would be to write letters to legislators calling for gun control. <facepalm>
I said to my fellow Council members the following:
“Look, I understand the anger some have about guns. But the gun was just an instrument of hate. Timothy McVeigh killed hundreds with fertilizer and fuel oil. Yes, they targeted the gay community is this incident. And on 9/11, they targeted the World Trade Center – a bastion of capitalism. In the Middle East, Christians are horribly victimized – in one case, lined up on a beach and beheaded. Let’s look at the big picture – not at the instrument used, or the identity of the victims in this particular case.”
Terrorists don’t seem to learn much of anything about anything.
It sounds like the targets they assign when the guy is annoying and keeps borrowing the goat after meetings.
“Achmed- bring back the goat and you get a Walmart in Texas….”
He decided to kick it off in Amarillo? Knucklehead.