Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada — #MayTheFourth is widely known among #SciFi fans #StarWarsDay and a local business decided to do a #StarWars-based promotion by having one of its employees dress in a #stormtrooper #costume complete with a toy plastic blaster.
Unfortunately for the #costumed female employee, things quickly went terribly awry after she had been outside for an hour in front of the Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina (the business doing the promotion) when armed police officers arrived in three police cruisers and a truck.
Business owner Bradley Whalen rushed outside when he heard the commotion outside and described the scene as follows:
“We had music playing in the parking lot, we had one of our staff dress up as a stormtrooper kind of waving to people walking up and down the road, we had people stopping by and getting pictures with the stormtrooper, we put a couple of promotions on in the restaurant to entice people to come.”
“Police officers had guns drawn, pointed at my employee. They were yelling at her to put the gun down so she threw the plastic gun on the ground. At that point in time when I came out, she was on her knees kneeling down on the ground. The police had already checked and seen that the gun was plastic so they already knew that there wasn’t an issue or a risk there.”
Whalen believes that one or more members of the public must have seen his costumed employee brandishing a plastic toy blaster and mistakenly believing that it was a real gun and phoned police. Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) Inspector Jason Walper says they got two 911 calls regarding a firearms complaint near the business on 13 Street North.
When police arrived, they ordered her to drop the toy blaster and to get on her knees. She immediately dropped the toy, but explained that kneeling was difficult to do in the stormtrooper costume. Inspector Walper claims “the person did not comply with the police verbal directions. Eventually, they did after multiple repeated orders given by the police officers.” After she got on her knees, Walper adds that the officers then “pushed the individual down to the ground” and put her into handcuffs.
As a result of being pushed to the ground, the employee had a bloodied nose. Neither Whalen nor Walper could confirm if she had suffered any other injuries. According to Whalen, it took an extra few moments for the employee to get down because of the costume itself.
“She kept yelling at them that she couldn’t kneel down because, in that stormtrooper costume, you can’t even sit down in it, like it’s impossible to sit down. She kept telling them that she couldn’t get down is what she explained to me after we talked to her.”
“It wasn’t a matter of her not wanting to cooperate. She dropped the gun when they told her to and just forcing her, making her get down on the ground after they determined that she wasn’t a risk and that the gun wasn’t even a real gun, it was a plastic Star Wars blaster.”
Whalen claims that there was no effort on the part of the police to de-escalate the situation or speak to him or the employee calmly before taking action. Walper says he understands that this matter likely boiled down to a misunderstanding, but they have to take these types of calls for service seriously. Walper said,
“We had multiple 911 calls stating there was someone with a firearm.”
“Any time our officers are responding to something that’s very spontaneous where there’s a weapon involved, our first responsibility is to ensure we can create a safe environment for the officers, for the public, and the individual itself. So certainly, their first response is to deal with that weapon and remove the weapon from the person, take the person into custody, and then allow us to follow up with that investigation to determine exactly what occurred.”
The employee was arrested and placed into a police vehicle, but was released at the scene. No charges against her were filed.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that we’re reported about someone wearing a costume in public being arrested by police. However, this is the first time that the person in costume was a store employee. The store owner should have considered not having the employee holding the blaster and there should’ve been a handler assisting the costumed employee. In a sense, this was a violation of what we have published in the past regarding the rules of costuming & cosplay.
Below are past incidents that we have reported on:
- Stormtrooper Cosplayer Arrested in Los Angeles
- Passenger Dressed in Clown Costume Sparked Brawl Onboard British Cruise Ship
- Cosplayer Totes Prop Weapon at Public Beach, Law Enforcement Called In
- Masked “Star Wars” Costumed Student Prompts School Evacuation