On Saturday, my sister Janessa picked up three hours of a shift from a co-worker (who had picked those three hours up from another co-worker). These three hours were pretty much the only three hours she'd worked for nearly two weeks. She was scheduled to be off at 7, but stayed two extra hours so a girl who wasn't feeling well could go home. So, she should have been off at 9 but wasn't because, just minutes before she was off, the shooting occurred.
It's amazing what led up to Janessa being there; so many little things that changed, and in many ways, were unusual. I'm just so glad she wasn't injured because each of those little pieces that changed could have become lifelong regrets.
Anyway, Saturday was a normal day at Smith's. Busy, but less so than everyone was used to because BYU had let out and the students had gone home for the summer. Janessa was busy on the front end, bagging customer's groceries, when she noticed a squabble between a man who was trying to shoplift beer and a non-Smith's employee who was there stocking shelves. The stocker was trying to carry out a citizen's arrest on the man and the man was totally uncooperative. The two were creating quite a disturbance so they went into a backroom behind the customer service counter and shut the door to work it out.
Janessa continued bagging.
Soon, the door opened again and Janessa heard something to this extent (with a few explicatives which I'm not including): "You've got a gun!" "No I don't!" "Yes you do, I just saw it!"
Everyone on the front end began to get a little nervous, but somehow just continued with their work.
And then there were shots being fired. Everyone scrambled to hide behind checkstands or whatever they could find. Alarms were ringing and announcements were being made over the intercom instructing customers with what to do. Most of the customers just ran out through the back doors through the back room though.
Then the store was evacuated to the parking lot where Janessa was held with the witnesses for an hour or two. Horrible rumors circulated that certain people had been shot, even down to indicating where they'd been shot. However these rumors started that were so far from the truth, I have no idea. It would be interesting to find out though. Anyway, the truth of the story, at least as far as we know, was this:
No shots were actually fired by the shoplifter, but only by the two policemen who had somehow arrived without Janessa seeing. (They would have had to walk right past her.) And the only injuries (not counting psychological ones) were to the guy trying to shoplift; he was shot and dead on the scene.
It's so crazy to realize that these things happen everywhere, even in our little bubble of Provo, where we think everything is so safe.
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