It was an erroneous statement, not a malicious lie. There were children in the area, and the caller did believe the gun was real.
He also claimed that Crawford was loading the gun.
It did look like he could have been loading it at one point. Plus, I haven't seen any video of what Crawford was doing before he got to the pet food aisle.
There’s some more information out there about the 911 caller.
At first, the stories referred to the 911 caller as an “ex-Marine.” That sounded curious - because anyone who’s served in the Marines never calls themselves “ex.” Once a Marine, always a Marine.
It turns out, according to the latest stories, that he enlisted in the Marines but was kicked out due to “fraudulent enlistment,” whatever that means.
So, was the caller simply mistaken? Or does he have a history of overreacting or lying? Anyone can make this kind of mistake; but, given that two people died as a result, we have to ask these questions.