At least one police officer shot a knife-wielding woman on Tuesday in the parking lot of a Walmart superstore. For reasons yet unexplained, she had, according to the police, “effectively kidnapped” a three-year-old child from the store.
The Omaha police do not understand at this point what prompted her to act this way. On Tuesday, April 14, law enforcement officers in this Nebraska city in the United States fatally shot a woman in the parking lot of a Walmart superstore who was attacking a young boy with a knife, as reported by the Associated Press.
According to Omaha Police Deputy Chief Scott Gray, the suspect first approached a customer shopping with the child in the store before threatening her with a stolen knife from one of the aisles. She then “took the child, effectively kidnapping him,” explained Scott Gray.
The kidnapper instructed the woman to move in front of the cart where the little boy was sitting. “They walked out of the store as if nothing was wrong, without anyone suspecting anything,” said Omaha Police Deputy Chief.
The child’s life is not in danger
Both women had a heated verbal exchange in the parking lot for several minutes before the arrival of the police. While the officers were giving her instructions, the suspect began “hitting the child in the face with the knife,” Scott Gray stated. At least one officer then fired at the suspect, who died on the spot.
The child was injured on the face and hand and was hospitalized, but his life is not in danger. At this point, the police are unaware of the motives of the deceased woman. They only mentioned that she and the customer with the child did not know each other.
