No charges filed in WalMart incident
Published 10:25 am Wednesday, December 16, 2020
With little other explanation other than the most simple – Batesville being Batesville – rumors and wild stories of a shooting at WalMart over the weekend proved to be nothing but rumors and wild stories.
About 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 12, officers responded to a 911 call from the store that reported a person with a gun was threatening other shoppers.
Chief of Police Kerry Pittman said officers responded quickly and were able to detain and question a man who was said to have a weapon inside the store, and another man with whom he had an argument.
Neither man had a gun, and both denied they had brought a weapon to the store.
“It was just an argument between two males, and no arrests were made and no charges were filed,” Pittman said.
Pittman said he talked with officers on the scene, where they had determined no charges were warranted, and neither person detained wanted to make an affidavit against the other.
Other customers in the store at the time of the altercation said an alarm was sounded and they were told to exit the building because someone had come into the store with a gun.
Pittman said reporters from television news departments in Memphis called him for comment, insisting there was actual gunfire in the store. Finally, he said, they were convinced their reports weren’t accurate and accepted that there was no shooting in the store.