Forza barista recounts coffeehouse horror
Posted: Jan 29, 2010
One of the two baristas who witnessed the shooting of four police officers inside a Forza Coffee store recently described the experience to Seattle’s KOMO-TV. The barista—who has elected to go just by her first name, Sara—was making a latte for one of the officers when the gunman entered the Parkland, Wash., shop. “I greeted him and said, ‘Hi,’ and so I was standing right in front of the door,” she tells KOMO. “I saw everything that happened before I turned around and ran out the door.” She says the scene was so chaotic she didn’t realize the officers had been killed until hours later, when she was interviewed by detectives: “She asked me if I had any final questions, then I asked, ‘Did they survive?’ and she said, ‘No,’ and then I lost it."
Forza Coffee, which re-opened the Parkland store in December, held a fundraiser to generate money for a trust set up to help the officers’ families, and raised $114,000. To read Fresh Cup’s exclusive interview about the shooting and re-opening with Forza CEO Brad Carpenter, click here.
—Dan Leif
