Neighbors and family members described the man behind Tuesday\u2019s hostage situation at an Amarillo Walmart as a longtime resident, part of a quiet family who didn\u2019t come across as violent.<\/p>\n
Amarillo police said Mohammad Moghaddam, 54, fired shots and held two hostages at gunpoint at Walmart, 4215 Canyon Dr., before Amarillo Police Department SWAT officers shot and killed him.<\/p>\n
The hostage situation was described as a \u201cworkplace violence event.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Moghaddam family came to Amarillo eight years ago from Iran, two of the family\u2019s grown children said Tuesday at their Southeast 36th Avenue home. They said their mother, Leila Gachlou, Mohammad\u2019s wife, also works at Walmart. The children, Adel, 30, and Atefeh, 27, were home while the incident was still unfolding. They have lived on 36th Avenue for at least the last eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw him this morning. He was happy and ate breakfast and then went to work,\u201d Adel told the Amarillo Globe-News.<\/p>\n
Potter-Randall Appraisal District records show Moghaddam purchased the home in November 2004.<\/p>\n
A criminal history check on Moghaddam did not return any results. Records show he previously lived in the Bronx Borough of New York City.<\/p>\n
Representatives of the two organizations that facilitate refugee resettlements in Amarillo -Refugee Services of Texas and Catholic Charities \u2013 said they would not discuss whether they helped Moghaddam and his family relocate to Amarillo.<\/p>\n
A neighbor, who asked not to be named, described Moghaddam\u2019s family as quiet, mostly keeping to themselves. She said she was told Moghaddam had a liver transplant last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very unexpected,\u201d the neighbor said. \u201cYou never expect your neighbor to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amarillo Globe-News reporters Matthew Hutchison and Russell Anglin contributed to this profile.<\/p>\n
Source Amarillo.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Neighbors and family members described the man behind Tuesday\u2019s hostage situation at an Amarillo Walmart as a longtime resident, part of a quiet family who didn\u2019t come across as violent. … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9731"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}