An employee of Table Mesa Drive King Soopers in Boulder, Colorado hid his 69-year-old coworker under a trashcan during Monday’s shooting, KDVR reported.
Logan Smith said he witnessed the gunman shoot a customer behind the store before he ran back inside to call 911, KDVR reported. He then rushed to protect his coworker behind the store’s Starbucks counter, KDVR reported.
Flowers hang from the perimeter fence outside a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.(Photo by JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images)
“I knew since she was elder – she’s older than me – I must protect her over myself,” Smith told KDVR. “Instinctively I pushed her into a corner, covered her with trash cans and then tried to find a place for myself.”
Smith, who is taller than six feet, found a trashcan, he told KDVR.
“My head was visible outside of so I wasn’t in the safest situation,” Smith told KDVR. “The gunman was approaching my kiosk and while I was hiding he got 13 feet away from me. Not a single word was said from him from what I could hear until police arrived. They were shouting at him. Gunshots were fired. It was just silence and the store music. Longest 20 minutes of my life.”
Smith insists he is not a hero, he said to KDVR. He praised the police department, specifically Officer Eric Talley, who was shot and killed, according to KDVR. (‘Senseless Act Of Violence’: Police Identify The 10 Victims Of The Colorado Grocery Store Shooting)
“I don’t consider myself a hero. I believe our police department. I believe the officer that was shot at the entrance – he is the biggest hero of it all.”
“As a grocery store employee, we sign the paper when we get the job that customers are first and I put my life underneath their lives,” Smith said. “If anyone was going to die it was me before my customers, before my coworkers.”