A Star Wars themed restaurant was the setting of a bizarre and violent scene on May 4 as police arrived with guns drawn on a woman who was serving food in a stormtrooper costume.
The waitress at Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina in Lethbridge was participating in May the Fourth celebrations and serving customers in the parking lot and dancing for her patrons. He costume featured a replica Star Wars blaster.
Moments later, she was tackled by police after they surrounded her with guns drawn.
"Apparently a couple of people had called 911 and said that there was somebody with a gun on 13 Street North," Brad Whalen, the restaurant's owner, told CTV. "A number of police officers had shown up to our business with guns drawn on our employee."
Whalen that his employee, whose name is Ashley, suffered a bloody nose as a result of being tackled and handcuffed.
"The officers approached the person and provided verbal directions to that person to drop the weapon, to put themselves on to the ground. The person did not comply with police verbal directions. Eventually they did after multiple repeated orders given by the police officers," said Jason Walper of Lethbridge Police Services.
Whalen criticized the police officers for not using common sense.
Comment: Geezus! Seems Canada isn't immune to police insanity. This woman very likely 'didn't comply with police directions' because she didn't understand how they were directing them toward her! The owner is right: these police officers didn't act with a lick of sense.