East Peoria, IL (GSL) – On August 15, I walked into the Walmart in East Peoria looking for church shoes for the boys. I found a man playing cop instead.
Just inside the front doors stood a young guy in olive pants, uniform boots, and a black T-shirt. Strapped to his thigh was a large Glock in an open rig. No badge. No “SECURITY” on the shirt. No name tape. No spare mags. No handcuffs, no radio or any other typical LEO accoutrements.
He did not give off a cop vibe. He gave off a vibe of a man who liked the costume. As if the big gun made him feel like a bigger man.
I asked the obvious question.
“Whoa, dude. Nice rig you got there. You a cop?”
“Yeah, I’m a cop,” he said. Then: “Who are you?”
Nice combative answer. When a stranger is carrying a duty pistol on his thigh in a grocery store, the public does not owe him an autobiography. When asked, he owes the public identification. This is Illinois, not (checks notes) dozens of other states where open carry is legal and welcome.
“Can I see your badge? Or at least what agency do you work for?” I asked.
“I don’t have to show you a badge. Why you want to know? What’s it to you?”
That is when the conversation stopped being casual. A man with a gun who claims he’s a cop and refuses to say who pays him is not “security.” He is a problem. I told him so. When I see someone dressed like that, toting a gun like that, with no badge, I think I am looking at someone playing cop.
He did not back down. I offered to have the real police come sort it out. He told me to go ahead and call. So I did. 911 is easy to remember.
He was, apparently, real police. That made it worse, not better.
After I bought the shoes, I asked for and talked to Walmart management. Their line was remarkable even by corporate standards. Walmart policy, they said, was that cops working armed security should not display a badge, because they were not working in their official capacity as police.
So put them in something that says security, I said.
The highest-ranking person I could get—loss prevention—said that was against store policy too. Policy against a badge. Policy against looking like security. Policy, apparently, in favor of a combative man with a Glock and a bad attitude. What could possibly go wrong?
While I waited for the manager, the same armed fellow came back. “They” wanted me out, he said, pointing at the door.
I smiled. “YOU ain’t got the horsepower to trespass me if I’m not shoplifting. You ready to show me that badge yet?”
He muttered something and walked off. That is what happens when a man is used to winning arguments with a holstered gun instead of a sentence.
The next day I made a couple calls.
Tazewell County Sheriff’s public information officer listened, then laughed out loud. “He’s not one of ours.”
East Peoria’s PIO, a sergeant, was equally pleasant and jovial. Not one of theirs either—but he shared more. The deputy chief of East Peoria saw the 911 call, may have listened to it, and called Walmart’s security people himself. The PIO described the conversation as “spirited.”
In the end the deputy chief made the rule simple to avoid future 911 calls about an armed man refusing to identify at Walmart: anyone working armed security at that East Peoria Walmart will wear a badge or wear security attire. Corporate policy be damned. He emailed the entire roster at East Peoria PD.
I still do not know the gun-toting man’s name or his agency. The store would not give that to me. That part is unfinished business. The part that matters already changed.
This is the lesson, and it is not complicated: Bullies come in all walks of life. Some even wear a uniform. Some of them even have a shield. Others may have a corporate handbook in the classic verbal judo technique known as “referring to a higher authority.”
At least one of them wears a thigh rig and a chip on his shoulder. Meeting any of them with violence is how you become the story instead of the citizen who fixed the problem.
A phone call works. A calm question works. A follow-up to the people who actually have rank works. Polite objection is not weakness. It is the adult version of force. You document. You ask. You escalate up the food chain. You do not let a bully with a gun train you to look at the floor.
An average person can get results. Do not let a police impersonator—or a real cop with no people skills and no visible authority—intimidate you from asking reasonable questions.
We can think of multiple instances of armed security shooting people who didn’t need shooting in Chicago. Or worse yet felons pretending to be police while working security (and shooting people). Seeing someone dressed like this in Central Illinois who is unable or unwilling to produce a badge while dressed in plain clothes is not the norm. Nor should it become the norm until we all can do it legally if we so choose.