A man who tried to steal undershirts valued at $16 from a Wal-Mart in Margate, Fla., shot and killed a loss prevention employee there Friday evening, police said.

Lewis Jhon, 49, of Coral Springs, was pronounced dead at North Broward Medical Center after the shooting at about 7:15 p.m., Margate Police Lt. Andy Zettek said.

Hollywood resident Terrell Kennith Johnson, 22, was identified as the subject. He fled on foot, and police said they later found what they believed to be his body, which appeared to have a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Zettek said.

Johnson was found on the 500 block of NW 51st Avenue, he said.

The incident began when Johnson tried to steal packages of white undershirts at the Wal-Mart at 555 W. Atlantic Blvd in Margate, Zettek said. Jhon detained him, and at some point Johnson shot Jhon near the front entrance of the store, Zettek said.

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“Everybody was scared that something was going to happen to them," witness Edward Jorgenson said of when people heard the gunshots in the store.

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A woman was also taken into custody but her involvement in the incident is unknown.

After the shooting, police from Sunrise, Margate, Coconut Creek and Plantation converged on the scene, and a helicopter flew in the area searching for the suspect.

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Two parents from a Chicago suburb are in custody after leaving their children tied up and blindfolded in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Lawrence, Kan., police said.

Adolfo Gomez Jr., 52 and Deborah Gomez, 43, of Northlake, Ill., were booked on suspicion of two counts each of child abuse and five counts each of child endangerment, according to NBC station KSHB in nearby Kansas City, Mo.

Douglas County prosecutors Thursday morning were reviewing the case and told LJWorld.com of Lawrence they could file charges later in the day.

A customer called police Wednesday to report a young boy tied up and blindfolded outside a Chevrolet Suburban. When officers arrived, they found a 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl bound and blindfolded outside the vehicle in the parking lot, Sgt. Trent McKinley told KSHB.

Three other children, ages 12, 13 and 15, were inside the vehicle, McKinley said.

"They were certainly upset by the events of the day," he said. "When we contacted the two children that were outside the vehicle, and took the male into custody, the remaining three didn't wanna come out of the car."

Officers said they used a stun gun to subdue a man believed to be the children's father. A photo posted on LJWorld.com shows the man being handcuffed by authorities.

The family was on its way to Arizona when they pulled off I-70 due to car trouble, police told KSHB.

“I’ve been a police officer for 21 years and this is certainly one of the more unusual and more disturbing calls that I’ve been on,” McKinley said to the Kansas City Star. “As we continue the investigation and interviews (with the children), we are hoping to understand the dynamics of the family, what’s occurred the last couple of days and possibly what their intentions were.”

Police are working with child welfare officials to make sure the kids are taken care of while their parents are in jail, KSHB reported.

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A black man who says he suffered emotional distress when he heard a hijacked public address announcement at a Wal-Mart store in New Jersey telling all blacks to leave has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages from the company.

Donnell Battie says Wal-Mart was negligent, careless and reckless and showed deliberate indifference by failing to properly control access to the P.A. system.

Battie’s lawsuit was first filed in Camden County Superior Court in March. It was moved this week to U.S. District Court in Camden, the New Jersey Law Journal reported Tuesday.

The lawsuit stems from a March 14, 2010, incident at a Wal-Mart in the community of Turnersville in Washington Township, N.J. Shortly before 5 p.m., someone commandeered the store’s public address system and announced: “Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now.”

A store manager quickly went on the intercom system and apologized for the remark, and police were summoned, according to media reports at the time. A 16-year-old was later arrested on harassment and bias intimidation charges.

Battie says he was in the store and contends the announcement led to depression, anxiety, anger, loss of sleep and appetite, paranoia, anti-social tendencies and loss of enjoyment in activities.

Battie's attorney, John Klamo, says Battie had already been getting professional help for previous traumatic incidents.

"Mr. Battie is an individual who has been under care of a doctor for various disabilities dealing with his psychological makeup," Klamo told the Law Journal. He's in Wal-Mart and something of this nature presents its ugly head and it brings up past situations in his life that affected him."

Archive video: Police investigate alleged store P.A. slur

Greg Rossiter, a Wal-Mart spokesman, declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit but told msnbc.com:

“We were appalled by this incident and are amazed that anyone could be so backward and mean-spirited in this day and age. We are sorry it happened and apologized at the time to any of our customers and associates who heard it. We updated our intercom system in this store to prevent this from happening in the future.”

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SALMON, Idaho -- When Mica Craig reached down to brush what he thought was a stick off some mulch in the garden section of a Washington state Wal-Mart, it turned around and sank its fangs into his hand. 

The Friday encounter with a rattlesnake sent Craig, 47, to the hospital, where he said he remained in excruciating pain and may lose feeling in two fingers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc has apologized.

"I reached down to grab the stick to move it out of the way, and the snake stretched out, turned around and got its fangs in my right hand," he said. "I slung it off and I did a tap dance on it until it was dead."

Craig was rushed to the hospital by fellow customer Maria Geffre, who told Reuters she saw him crumple to the ground after crying out that he had been bitten by a snake.

"He had punctures on his hand and there was the dead rattler he'd stomped on," Geffre said, describing the snake as at least a foot long with four buttons, or rattles.

Craig, a married father of two, said the mulch was for his marijuana plants, which he is licensed to grow for medical reasons. It was unclear whether the snake came from an adjacent field or arrived at the store along with garden supplies.

"It's the most scared I've ever been in my life," Craig told KIRO FM from his hospital bed in Lewiston, Idaho. "I was screaming bloody murder through the parking lot."

'Isolated incident'
Craig said emergency room doctors sent him home because there was little swelling initially - he had iced the wound - and they thought the snake had inflicted only a "dry bite," or one that did not inject venom.

But his hand quickly swelled up to "the size of a grapefruit," Craig told KIRO, and he returned to the hospital. Doctors treated him with six bags of anti-venom, Craig said.

"As of right now, my little finger doesn't move at all and my ring finger barely moves," he said according to KIRO. "I'm just hoping that my hand works."

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman offered an apology to Craig and said the retailer was looking into how the incident could have happened at the store in Clarkston, in eastern Washington.

"At this point, it appears to be an isolated incident. We are working with a pest management team, which is conducting a sweep of the property to ensure there is no additional rattlesnake activity," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said.

Travis Taggart, director of the Center for North American Herpetology, said about half of documented rattlesnake bites, which are usually defensive when directed at humans, are "dry" but still cause severe pain.

Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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DINWIDDIE, Va. -- An employee at a Wal-Mart distribution center shot his manager in her leg, then fatally shot himself Wednesday afternoon, the Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Office told NBC station WWBT of Richmond.

The shooter was a 32-year-old Petersburg man who had worked in the shipping department for nine years, WBBT said. He was working on the day shift and had just returned from his lunch break when he opened fire, the Sheriff's Office told WWBT. After shooting his manager, he fired two shots at deputies responding to the scene before turning the gun on himself, officials told WWBT.

Authorities said the 40-year-old manager, also from Petersburg, has worked at the facility for 18 years. Authorities are withholding her and the gunman's names until their families are notified, WBBT said.

See the original story at WBBT

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