Police in Amarillo, Texas, killed a man Tuesday during a SWAT raid after he barricaded himself in a Walmart store with hostages in what authorities described as a “workplace violence event.”
Mohammad Moghaddam, 54, was a store employee who took the manager and another employee hostage after a confrontation regarding a dispute over a promotion, said Sonja Gross, spokeswoman for the City of Amarillo.
“There is no indication that this had anything to do with terrorism,” she said.
Moghaddam fired one shot from a handgun into the ceiling during the dispute and then took the manager to an office in back of the store, she said.
The SWAT team entered the office about an hour and 15 minutes after the 11:06 a.m. 911 call, after seeing one hostage exit the office and thinking Moghaddam was alone, Gross said.
“SWAT officers … saw that there was a second hostage at that time,” she said in a prepared statement. “The suspect was still armed with a handgun and was a threat to the hostage and the officers. Two SWAT officers fired shots which hit the suspect.”