Two officers in Omaha f@tally shot a woman who held a kitchen knife and aimed it at a 3-year-old boy in a Walmart parking lot on Tuesday, April 14.
The woman, identified by the authorities as Noemi Guzman, 31, “was making multiple threats” and did not comply with requests to drop the weapon, the department said in a news release.
“She refused to drop the weapon and cut the boy,” the police’s statement said.
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The two patrol officers “fired their service weapons striking Ms. Guzman.”
The episode unfolded shortly after 9 a.m., when the two officers from the Omaha Police Department arrived at the store to respond to calls to 911, including one that described a woman who was armed with a “large kitchen knife” and was with a child.
Store surveillance video shows that Ms. Guzman stole the knife from inside the store and brandished it at the child and his babysitter in an aisle.
She “forced the guardian to walk ahead of the cart while the child remained inside” it, and then directed them to the parking lot, the police statement said.
Officers tried to provide aid to Ms. Guzman after the shooting, but she di£d at the scene, the police said.
After the shooting, the boy’s guardian and a bystander, who were not identified, removed him from the cart, and he was taken to Children’s Nebraska hospital, where he was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, the statement said.
The officers, Brian Seaton and Roger Oseka, each have 22 years of service in the department. They were placed on paid leave, in line with policy after critical incidents.
The investigation into the shooting is being conducted jointly with Nebraska State Patrol and the Douglas and Sarpy County Sheriff’s Offices.
The boy’s mother, Sara Hillman, said on Wednesday, April 15, in a post on social media that her son had 17 to 20 stitches in his face and more in his hand.
“A situation unfolded that no family should ever have to experience. Our 3-year-old was put in a life-threatening situation by someone who should have never been in a position to harm anyone,” she wrote.
Ms. Hillman said Ms. Guzman was not known to her family or the family friend who was looking after her son that day. She said the police had told her the woman had a history of arrests.
Ms. Guzman had been arrested in 2024 after, police said, she cut her father with a knife and tried to break in to a church. A clerk in the district court of Douglas County, Neb., said by telephone on Wednesday that she had been found “not responsible by reason of insanity” for the charges of assault, arson, burglary and criminal mischief stemming from those allegations.
The case was still open as she underwent competency hearings.
Lt. Neal Bonacci, a police spokesman, said in an interview on Wednesday that the officers had no idea that Ms. Guzman was the same person whom officers from the department had taken to the hospital earlier that same day to be treated for injuries related to a domestic disturbance.
He said the time that elapsed between their arrival at Walmart and opening fire was approximately 30 seconds.
The episode at the Walmart was also recorded on body cameras worn by the officers. Still images taken from the footage and published by the police show Ms. Guzman standing next to the boy with the raised knife.
Scott Gray, the executive deputy police chief, told reporters in Omaha on Tuesday that the video showed she was “swiping the knife at the child, cutting him across the face.”
The family of the boy sent photographs of the injury to KETV, which show the child received stitches for a gash on the side of his face.
“The responding officers acted with professionalism and direct action to intervene and save a child’s life,” Chief Todd Schmaderer of the Omaha Police Department said in the statement.
When the investigation is completed, the case will be presented to a grand jury as required by law in Nebraska when a person dies in the custody of the police or during an arrest, the police said on Wednesday