Two weeks ago, a scary hostage situation was narrowly averted in a suburban Oklahoma City Walmart. The Walmart hostage video just released shows the disturbing incident unfold in the Midwest City store.

Sammie Lamont Wallace seized a two-year-old girl from her mother’s shopping cart. Other shoppers dialed 9-1-1 as he held the child at knife point. The store was emptied of customers as police arrived on the scene and confronted the man.

Police tried to negotiate with Wallace as he held on to the girl, spending a half-hour talking to the man before he began a count down.

That’s when things moved fast. One officer wasted no time distracting Wallace. Another took the chance to fire a shot point-blank that killed him, sparing the child’s life and ending the tense standoff before the 37-year-old’s 60-second countdown ended.

The Inquistr’s report quoted Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent, as saying that once “a subject starts telling  you that in 60 seconds he’s going to kill a hostage, that’s going to move you right up to the point that you will shoot him and that’s what occurred in this case.”

According to Midwest City Police Assistance Chief Sid Porter, the hostage-taker had no relationship to the child or mother.

Police Chief Brandon Clabes said, “You can’t make this up. This is real life and it happened.” He also compared the incident to something out of a movie, saying “”You’ve got the ingredients of a two and a half year old helpless victim, you’ve got a mother who has to standby helplessly and watch as her daughter is being held by a mental patient with a knife, and you have our officers responding,”You’ve got the ingredients of a two and a half year old helpless victim, you’ve got a mother who has to standby helplessly and watch as her daughter is being held by a mental patient with a knife, and you have our officers responding.”

A shopper in the store at the time, Terry Parker, used his cart to block Wallace. “If that gentleman was to come my direction he would have to go through me or my cart to do that,” Parker told CBS12 news.

Clabe said that “during negotiations they try all kinds of cues.” “We waited until the last second in our opinion to use deadly force,” the police chief said.

The officer who took the fatal shot “made sure he was at point blank range to make sure there was no ability to harm that child,” according to Clabe.

It worked, as the girl was unharmed in the incident.