“There’s someone with a knife holding a little girl hostage.” That’s what a 911 dispatcher was told when an urgent call came in from an Oklahoma Walmart.
A mother had been shopping with her two young daughters when a man approached her shopping cart and snatched her 2-year-old daughter. Bystanders watched in shock and horror as Sammie Wallace held a knife to the girl until until police arrived on the scene.
It was an intense stand-off as police tried to coax Wallace into letting the girl go. Police offered Wallace a chair to restrict his movements, but the suspect with a history of mental illness and a criminal record, refused to release the little girl.
In surveillance footage of the incident, Captain David Huff can be seen crouching in front of Wallace, while another officer spoke with him to distract him. For 34 minutes police tried using hostage-release tactics but they were not working and when Wallace began counting down from 60 and moved the knife from the child’s stomach to her throat, the officers knew they were running out of time.
When the suspect moved his head momentarily to the left, Huff acted and got up and shot the suspect in the head at point blank range.
“I mean we waited until the last second to use deadly force,” said Midwest City police chief Brandon Clabes told KFOR News back in 2013 when the incident occurred. “No one wants to take a life, especially in the line of duty.”
Thankfully, the girl was unharmed and returned to her grateful mother.
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