Man shot dead by police in Walmart 'after he picked up a toy gun'

Daily Mail ^ | August 7, 2014 | Julian Robinson

[Altariel]

Relatives of John Crawford, pictured, believe he was holding a toy gun when police shot him dead at a Walmart store A man shot dead by police in a U.S. supermarket may have been killed after picking up a toy gun, his relatives have claimed.

John Crawford was gunned down at a Walmart store in Beavercreek amid reports that he was waving a rifle at customers, including children.

But relatives of the 22-year-old have contacted civil rights organisations after claiming he was holding a toy gun in the toy section of the shop when the incident unfolded.

LeeCee Johnson, who has claimed to be the mother of Mr Crawford’s two children, said she was speaking to him on the telephone when police descended on the scene.

Dayton Daily News report her as saying: ‘We was just talking. He said he was at the video games playing videos and he went over there by the toy section where the toy guns were.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Wal-Mart might not release them, but they would never destroy them, just lock them in a secure vault at their headquarters.

The reason for this is that they are a totally top-down organization. Even a box store manager has little say in what happens in his store, to the point where the store temperature of every store is determined by their headquarters from afar.

It can get surreal at times, because they have the world’s largest inventory database system. There had been a hurricane in Florida, and another one was expected soon, so they used this database to determine what people bought as emergency supplies.

Two things were far and away at the head of the list: beer and strawberry Pop-tarts. So they sent a huge convoy of semi-trucks to Florida with those two items. And the silly computer was right, they sold every bit of it.

[Sister_T]

Thanks for posting this. When people post a picture of this gun, it doesn’t give anyone like me any true perspective. Seeing this in the hands of a person gives one the idea that this looks threatening and that’s what that 911 caller and those cops probably were dealing with.

[exhaustguy]

You are right. From his reaction it seems the first time he noticed the police was after he was shot. They are off screen, but he does not turn towards them or point the weapon towards them. He seems to run back towards the weapon after being shot, but they may have been fear (how can you think logically if you had just been shot out of the blue).