The tape opens with a caller telling a 911 dispatcher there is a man with a knife in the Walmart, and he is stabbing people. Seconds later the line has the Traverse City store, the man’s shirt, his shorts, his pack and a guess at his age. Then the lines fill up.
The police did not stop him. Shoppers did, out in the parking lot, with shopping carts and a drawn gun. The source video puts it at less than five minutes from the first call to the arrest. Then the police radio started asking about a second man running with the attacker, and a shopper had to tell the officers that man was him.
You are going to see how it happened, in order, and what the men who stopped it did right when the police rolled in.
THE SETUP
The tape comes from the Midwest Safety channel. It opens on the 911 audio, moves to officer body cameras in the parking lot and inside the store, and ends in a police interview room.
I am not going to use the attacker’s name. He is not the subject. I am also not going to name or quote anyone who was hurt. Some of them are on camera while people hold pressure on their wounds, and they did not ask to be in anybody’s article.
I want you to take one thing from this tape. Most of what gets taught about a public attack ends at the moment the threat goes down. This tape keeps rolling past that moment, and you get to watch the part that comes next.
Officers arrive at a scene they did not see. They have descriptions that do not match, a crowd, blood on the floor and several men who were in the fight. They have to work out who is who, fast, and everybody standing there either helps them do that or slows them down.
Watch what the shoppers on this tape do. One of them still ended up on the police radio as an unknown second man. Both halves are worth your time, so I am going to walk you through them in the order the tape does.
The Walk-Through
THREE DISPATCHERS AND A FLOOD OF CALLS
The source video tells you the county had three dispatchers on duty. The calls with a wounded person on the other end all run the same way. Are you hurt, get a cloth, push on the wound, I have to go.
The dispatcher has more calls than hands, and the video counts 55 of them. Nobody can stay on the line with you. So the dispatcher hands you the wound and moves to the next caller.
For those minutes, the medic is whoever is kneeling there.
PULL QUOTE: For those minutes, the medic is whoever is kneeling there.
When an officer reaches a wounded shopper, people already have hands on the wound. He asks if they need a cop right there and checks that they are good. If you are ever the one on that phone, take the job the dispatcher gives you.
THE GUN THAT GOT PUT AWAY
A shopper tells an officer he had just come back from shooting out in the country and stopped in to pick up dinner. He heard screaming, walked to the front, and came outside to find the man with the knife heading toward other people. He drew and gave one order, over and over. Drop it.
By his account the man backed up, put the knife on top of a car, and then put it on the ground.
Now look at what he did next. He says that once the man was down, he put his firearm away. When the officer asks if he still has it on him, the answer is no. It is locked up, and the line on the tape is, got more sense than that.
Police were rolling to a call about an armed man. He made sure that by the time he talked to them, he was not one. If you carry, that is your decision point, and you make it this week at home, not in a parking lot with your heart pounding.
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WHEN THE RESCUER IS THE SECOND MAN
A shaken witness tells an officer he saw two men running side by side toward the exit. One of them reached out and stabbed a woman as they passed her. The other man never stopped running.
The radio has its own version. The suspect was seen running through the store with another individual, likely not related. Then a shopper clears it up himself. He tells the officers he was the one chasing the attacker out of the building, and the radio calls the report of a second man not credible.
Nobody had to lie for that to happen. Two men running hard in the same direction look the same from behind, whether one of them is chasing or not.
Once the attacker is down, the next problem in that parking lot is that the police cannot tell the rescuers from the threat.
PULL QUOTE: Once the attacker is down, the next problem in that parking lot is that the police cannot tell the rescuers from the threat.
By the cart man’s account he rammed the attacker and helped tackle him once the knife was out of his hand. He ended up holding that knife, closed, when a deputy ran in with a rifle. A shopper ran after the man with the knife, and the police radio had to stop and work out who he was.
If you ever step in, the deputy’s first second is all he gets, and he will use it on your hands. Empty them before he arrives, hold them open, and say who you are before he has to ask.
The same rule covers evidence. Later on the tape an officer is photographing something a bystander picked up and brought over. Unless it is a weapon somebody could grab, leave it where it lies and point.
WHAT HE TOLD THE OFFICERS
In an interview room, the man says everyone in that Walmart was a criminal. He gives a name that is not his. He talks about poisoned groceries, and he says all of them knew who he was.
He is not angry at one cashier or one shopper. A man who believes that about a whole store is not going to be talked out of it by anybody in the building.
After his rights are read, the officer walks him back to the store. He says he took them out, with a knife, and that he lost count.
Then the officer asks what he meant to do, and he says kill them.
You cannot talk a man like that down. Know the back way out, the way the first witness did, and decide now what you will do if you cannot get out. Every shopper in that lot had to pick.
The source video reports the ending after our cut stops. Eleven people were stabbed, and all eleven lived. He was charged with one count of terrorism and eleven counts of assault with intent to murder. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is held at the Michigan Center for Forensic Psychiatry.
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WHAT THE STREET DOES WITH THIS
Seven things, all free, all doable alone in under half an hour. Three of them point back to the section of this article they came from, so you can find the moment in the video.
1. Tell 911 what you look like, not only what he looks like. Practice the call out loud once this week, alone in the car. Where you are, what he looks like, what you are wearing, and that you are helping.
2. When the dispatcher drops you, the bleeding is your job. Put a clean cloth or a spare shirt in your car door today. The callers in Three dispatchers and a flood of calls had to find one on the spot.
3. Keep the gun out only as long as the threat is up. If you carry, practice the part shown in The gun that got put away. Gun away, step back, hands open, say your name out loud.
4. Do not hold a weapon when the police arrive. Decide today that anything you take off an attacker goes on the ground, and that you step away from it before the first officer reaches you.
5. Tell the first officer who you are before he has to guess. Write your one sentence and say it three times in the mirror. In When the rescuer is the second man, a shopper had to say it himself.
6. Stay and give your statement, or leave a number and answer it. Set your phone today so a call from an unknown number still rings. The detective who needs your statement is not in your contacts.
7. If you are not helping, get out and stay out. On your next trip to your regular store, walk to the rear exit once. Leaving fast is easier when you have already walked it.
CLOSE
Stopping the attacker is half the job. The shoppers on this tape did that half with carts and a gun, and then the tape shows you the second half. The gun gets put away, accounts get given, and a man who has to leave gives his phone number first.
All eleven lived, thank God. Pick one item from the list above and do it tonight. The mirror sentence takes two minutes.
The full episode is up now on Survival Dispatch TV, where I walk the whole tape pause by pause. The source tape is HERE.
If this was useful, subscribe at survivaldispatch.tv and you will get every breakdown the day it publishes.
Source footage: Midwest Safety, “Walmart Mass Stabbing Leaves 11 Injured” is HERE.
See it before you live it.
Godspeed ,
Chris Heaven, Founder
Survival Dispatch TV
Email questions to Support@SurvivalDispatch.com
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