The weapon that a "gunman" brandished at an Ohio Wal-Mart before being shot dead by police this week was a realistic-looking toy rifle,
a law enforcement officer told WHIO.com.
Witnesses told police they saw John Crawford, 22, walking through the Beavercreek Wal-Mart with a black rifle, pointing it in the air and aiming it at children Tuesday night.
"I couldn't hear anything that he was saying," Ronald Ritchie, who was at the store with his wife April, told WHIO.com. "I'm thinking that he is either going to rob the place or he's there to shoot somebody . . . He didn't really want to be looked at and when people did look at him, he was pointing the gun at them. He was pointing at people. Children walking by."
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The Ritchies called 911 and the responding officers reportedly fired two shots at the "gunman" when he failed to put the "weapon" down. Crawford was later declared dead at a nearby hospital.
But sources are now saying that the "rifle" may have just been "some type of BB or pellet gun that Crawford got and opened at
Wal-Mart," according to CBS News.
LeeCee Johnson, who reportedly has two children with Crawford, told WHIO that she was actually on the phone with him Tuesday when he was at Wal-Mart. She told the station she specifically heard Crawford tell police "it's not real" before he was shot.
"I could hear him just crying and screaming," Johnson said. "I feel like they shot him down like he was not even human. First of all, they used a rifle. They could have Tazed him, or . . . just used the handgun, not something so powerful or forceful like he was an animal or something."
Another store patron, 37-year-old Angela D. Williams, also died Tuesday after she collapsed while trying to run away from Crawford at the Wal-Mart. Officials told media outlets she had a pre-existing medical condition that was the cause of death.
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