Feathers Ruffled at Lynchburg Wal Mart

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Police respond to what they believe is a hostage situation at the Lynchburg Wal Mart. They found exterminators shooting at birds.

Lynchburg police thought a hostage situation may have been afoot when they set up a barricade outside the Wal-Mart on Wards Road Tuesday morning. A customer had noticed the 24-hour-a-day store was locked, and had seen a person inside with a gun. There were no hostages, however. Instead, an exterminator with an air rifle was helping reclaim a store that had gone to the birds.

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Angela Hatcher
Published: April 15, 2008

A false alarm at a local store ruffles feathers.

A shoppers called police around five Tuesday morning when she showed up at the 24-hour Lynchburg Wal Mart. The doors were locked and the woman saw men with guns inside.

Officers responded and shut down the parking lot. They acted as they would in a hostage situation. After making contact with someone inside the store, police learned the men were exterminators hired to shoot birds inside the store with pellet guns.

“I’m sure these two fellows didn’t feel too good about getting pulled out of that building at gunpoint until everything was resolved.“, says Lt. T.B. Lawton of the Lynchburg Police. Lawton says anyone would have responded the same way as the shopper because the guns looked real and that police cannot under react to situations like this.

Police say store management should have notified them but did not. A Wal Mart corporate spokeswoman did not answer our question about why police were not called in advance.

Steve Simpson with the Central Virginia Health Department tells us the store managers were already working to correct the problem before the health department received complaints from customers. Simpson says the department got involved because there is a McDonald’s restaurant located in the store. Simpson says the store will be inspected Wednesday.