SWAT Team Kills Somali Suspect Who Took Hostages at Amarillo WalMart

He took his co-workers hostage for a time. Watch this story disappear – classified as “workplace violence.” I’m old enough to remember a when workplace violence meant fisticuffs in the parking lot.

A SWAT team shot and killed a suspect who took hostages at a Walmart in Amarillo, Texas Tuesday afternoon, investigators confirmed.

The Randall County Sheriff’s Office announced the gunman was dead. City officials first reported an “active shooter incident” at 12:30 p.m. local time.

We do consider this a work-place violence situation at this point,” the sheriff’s office said. One store employee told KFDA the gunman earlier released a worker and the store manager but was still inside the Walmart.

Witnesses told KVII an employee took another employee hostage.

Police said they were looking for a Somali man wearing khaki pants, KFDA added. Officers reportedly were evacuating shoppers from the west side of the store in the Texas Panhandle.

Jeff Nunn, the president of a nearby bank, told the Amarillo Globe-News that helicopters and roughly 20 police and emergency vehicles rushed to the store. His bank and a day care center reportedly went on lockdown.

Police closed nearby streets off I-27. “Please avoid the area so that officers can focus on the scene and not traffic,” the Amarillo Police Dept. said in a statement.