The employee dressed in the Star Wars stormtrooper costumer at Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina in Lethbridge. (Supplied to Lethbridge News Now by Bradley Whalen)

By David Opinko

CAUSE A PANIC, IT DID

Star Wars Day promotion gone wrong leads to police incident in Lethbridge

May 4, 2020 | 5:58 PM

LETHBRIDGE – May the fourth is widely known among fans of the sci-fi series as Star Wars Day. As such, a business in Lethbridge themed around the franchise wanted to put on a promotion to celebrate it.

Bradley Whalen, owner of the Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina, says it very quickly went off the rails and put one of his employees in serious danger.

“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.”

The female employee arrived for work at 10:00 am on Monday, May 4, and went out in full costume around 20 minutes later.

Whalen believes some members of the public must have seen her brandishing a plastic toy blaster, thought it was a real gun and called police.

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Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) Inspector Jason Walper says they got two 911 calls regarding a firearms complaint near the business. Three police cruisers arrived at approximately 11:20 a.m., and a truck followed shortly after.

Whalen came outside after hearing the officers shouting at the employee.

“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.”

Walper offered a different account of the officers’ initial encounter with the employee.

At the time he spoke to media about the incident, he had not yet fully reviewed all of the details, but 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 says 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.

Whalen says it took a few extra moments for the employee to get down because of the costume.

“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,” Whalen continued. “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 there was no effort on the part of the police to de-escalate the situation, or speak to him or the employee 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.

“We had multiple 911 calls stating there was someone with a firearm,” he explained.

“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,” says Walper, “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.

Either way, Whalen believes the officers should have handled the incident with “common sense and self-control.”

“She must be traumatized. She’s got guns pointed at her because she came to work today to dress up as a stormtrooper to promote Star Wars Day and she lasted an hour before she had guns pointed at her. I’m sitting here wondering, what are people thinking about my business now?”

Whalen says he is talking with the employee’s family about what, if any action they might take in response to the incident.

The employee standing along 13 Street North holding the toy blaster. (Supplied by Bradley Whalen)

The disassembled stormtrooper costume and the toy blaster. (Lethbridge News Now)