A trip to the store turned into a panic for Platte City resident Konnor Millsap.
She was among the hundreds at the Boardwalk Walmart on Sunday, Aug. 18, when two men walked into the store with guns in their waistbands.
A 911 call came at 12:15 p.m. and Kansas City police arrived on scene shortly after, detaining two males at 12:22 p.m.
Millsap, who moved to Platte City last November from Arkansas, was in the store with a friend and her child.
“People started screaming and running and I heard someone yell, ‘he’s got a gun’ and I ran as fast as I could to the back of the store with hundreds of other people in front of and behind me,” Millsap said.
The two men were released after they were briefly detained and no charges were filed in the case.
Walmart doesn’t have a sign posting guns are prohibited and no-permit concealed carry in Missouri went into effect in 2017 for those 19 and older. A Walmart Neighborhood Market in Springfield made national news recently when a man walked into it with a rifle, body armor and 100 round of ammunition and was charged with making a terroristic threat.
Kansas City Police Department Sgt. Jake Becchina told the media that the two men were cooperative and didn’t violate Missouri law. There were no active shooting threats.
Millsap noted when the commotion lessened they returned to their cart and saw the two men smiling while being handcuffed against the wall.
“It’s as if it was a joke to scare innocent people into thinking they were about to get shot at,” she said. “In Arkansas you are required to have a permit to carry a weapon, whereas here, you are not. I have been around guns my entire life and have always felt comfortable and safe around them, but now I feel completely unsafe and fear for my life and my daughter’s life anytime I leave the house. The gun laws in Missouri are absurd and something has to be done to change them.”