A man who walked through Von Maur holding a butcher knife led to a store evacuation and a police search late Tuesday morning.
LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, March 17, 2008 7:00 pm
A man who walked through Von Maur holding a butcher knife led authorities to evacuate the store and mount a search late Tuesday morning.
Police now say they believe the man may have been taking a knife to Scheels.
“Right now it doesn’t appear anyone was harmed. Threats weren’t made,” said Lincoln Police Officer Katie Flood. “It’s very possible this man was just taking his knife to be serviced at a nearby store.”
The report drew more than a dozen Lincoln police cars and a State Patrol search dog.
“It’s better to be safe,” Flood said. “You don’t know what the intentions are.”
On Dec. 5, a 19-year-old walked into the Von Maur store in Omaha and fatally shot six employees and two customers before killing himself.
Lincoln police still want to find the man, who, they learned by reviewing the store’s surveillance video, was gone by the time they arrived.
“We’d like to talk to him to clear this up,” she said.
The man is white and in his 60s with gray hair, she said. He was wearing dark pants and a dark shirt.
He didn’t do anything criminal or threaten anyone with the knife, she said.
“We’re just concerned about the carrying (of) a butcher knife through a department store.”
The man walked into Von Maur at SouthPointe Pavilions through the west entrance and out the east door at about 11 a.m.
At one point, he stopped briefly by the piano.
He returned to the store a short time later carrying a shopping bag, entering through the east door and leaving through the west, Flood said.
“Obviously this concerned employees,” she said.
Employees called police, left the building and asked customers to leave, too.
“He never made a threat, never did any threatening gesture with the knife. It just alerted employees. They are, I think, on a heightened sense of awareness because of other incidents,” Flood said.
Police arrived, set up a perimeter around the store and went in with guns drawn to look for the man, she said.
The search soon moved out of the store, and officers and police dogs went through the mall. By 12:45 p.m., police determined the man wasn’t in the area.
Von Maur reopened early that afternoon. A manager, reached by phone, referred questions to police.
Julie Lattimer, marketing director at SouthPointe Pavilions, said she was pleased with the police response.
“You never know in a situation like this. Hopefully it is innocuous, and yet at the same time you’d like to know they’re going to be on top of things as quickly as possible,” she said.
Brook Schumacher of Lincoln was planning to shop at Von Maur over her lunch hour, but when she got to the parking lot at about 11:30 a.m., she found police cars and was told the store had been evacuated.
“I’ve never seen so many Lincoln police cars in my life,” Schumacher said.
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.