Midwest City, Oklahoma police have released a video that shows the frightening abduction of a 2-year-old little girl at an area Walmart. Sammie Lamont Wallace took the child out of a cart and began a hostage situation that only ended after an officer shot him point-blank in the side of the head.
Wallace walked into the Walmart on June 17 at around 3PM and looked suspicious as he roamed around the store with a cart. Alicia Keating happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as she was there shopping with her 12 and 2-year-old children.
When Keating turned her back, the surveillance footage shows Wallace lifting her younger daughter from the buggy while the 12-year-old stood in shocked silence. Wallace, still holding the toddler, then walked up to the mother and asked her to call a police officer in Dallas with a cell phone he had handed her.
Here is the video from a news report via News9. While the video has been edited it is still difficult to watch and may not be appropriate for all audiences:
The mother begins to scream and plead for Wallace to return her child. At this point things got much worse as Wallace produced a knife and threatened the little girl. Witnesses on hand started dialing 911 and employees with the store started trying to talk to Wallace.
The local police department was fortunately right across the street and within minutes they had the store cleared including the terrified mother of the hostage.
Officers tried negotiations with Wallace for nearly 30 minutes and even went as far as to dial the officer in Dallas, who told the local authorities that Wallace had been harassing him. As the standoff neared its deadly conclusion they offered Wallace a chair for a tactical advantage.
The little girl had managed to remain mostly calm during her abduction but eventually she started to squirm from Wallace’s tight squeezing. In reaction, Wallace raised his knife to the child’s neck. He mentioned something about a satanic cult and started a 60-second countdown.
Capt. David Huff, the lead negotiator, knew it was time to act or the young child could have been killed. After circling an aisle to make sure he had a round in his chamber, he calmly approached Wallace, who was purposefully distracted by another officer as he sat in the chair, and shot him in the side of the head killing him instantly.
Wallace’s family stated that he had a long history of mental illness. He had been in prison in Texas from 2000 to 2011 and had reportedly moved to Oklahoma because he claimed he saw a ghost in his apartment.
The little girl who was held hostage suffered no injuries and is said to be doing fine. The district attorney reviewed the case and the footage and felt without question that the shooting was justified and was calling Capt. Huff a hero.
