Last Saturday evening, after spending a few hours enjoying our evening, we decided that we wanted to buy a few things from Smith's before going home. We went to the store, got the stuff we needed and went to the checkout. We were a little frustrated that all the registers were pretty full and we had to wait in line but eventually chose one of the registers and started waiting. You know how when you stand in line all the other lines seem to move faster than yours? That's what happened this time and to make things worse, our cashier leaves the register unattended and disappears in a room behind the Customer Service desk. It's an understatement to say that we got even more frustrated but soon the cashier's place was taken by another cashier. She checked out the two people in front of me and starts scanning my stuff but stops in the middle of the job to make a phone call! I looked at her not believing my eyes and without trying too hard I got to listen in the conversation. She was calling 911 to report a robbery that apparently just happened in the store. She looked pretty shaken up when she asked the dispatcher to send the police immediately because they believed that the suspect was carrying a gun. This definitely got my attention. I looked at David, who was on the other side of the cart, on my left but didn't really think too much about what she said. As she scanned a couple more of my things, we see two police officers walk into the store and go to the room behind the Customer Service desk. After some seconds we hear someone shout a few times "Put your gun down!" At that point we kind of freaked out and as all the cashiers instructed everyone to get down, we crouched down and hid behind the checkout stands. As everyone in the store got to the ground we heard several gun shots followed by a few more. The cashier behind me started crying and screaming which, to tell you the truth didn't help the situation. I was already scared but hearing her panic brought me to tears. All I could think about was that I was right in front of the Customer Service desk and the very first person in line and if the guy with the gun decided to come out and shoot anything or anyone I would be a pretty easy target. That didn't happen, fortunately, and after a few more minutes we were all safely evacuated from the store. Outside there were about 10 police cars, a couple ambulances and a fire truck and lots of people. As I said before, the store was pretty busy so there were lots of people in the parking lot as we exited. We didn't really know what the outcome of the situation was but after a few more minutes police blocked all the entrances to the parking lot and the area in front of the entrance. We waited around for about an hour and eventually decided that there was no reason to wait for our groceries since the store wasn't going to open any time soon.
The next day at church we met another person who happened to be in the store at the same time we were and he told us that he found out that the robber was killed by the police. We had my WIC documents to pick up from Smith's so we needed to return there to get them but it was such an eerie feeling walking back there and going through the check out again. The room where the whole thing happened was still blocked off and it looked like all the stuff inside had been taken out.
It's such a weird experience to be in a situation where your life could be threatened. Everything happens so fast. I'm guessing that people who loose their lives in such situations don't even realize what just happened to them immediately after they die. I don't know... But I can tell you that I now know that I don't like the sound of gun shots.
Here's a link to the story as it was published on ksl 5. You can even see David and myself in the video.
