He saw someone with a gun, nothing wrong with calling the cops.

If you see someone with a gun should you ask him if he's there to kill his ex girlfriend or rob the place before deciding whether it's worth a 911 call?

The cops were the ones in the wrong. They are responsible for dealing with a potential threat not Walmart shoppers. They didn't properly respond to the scene and killed an innocent man. The police and by extension their employer, the city, county or State, are the ones that should be sued.

You might also get Walmart for not properly packaging or storing the BB gun.

including children, and that he seemed to be stopping to load the gun.

By embellishing the story that way, he made sure the cops were all pumped up and convinced they had a suspect actively threatening to shoot families and children.

That's still no excuse for the cop shooting immediately, without even a warning or a demand to drop the weapon, but I don't doubt that the caller's embellishment, probably intended to make the caller seem heroic and win him his 15 minutes of fame, ensured that the trigger-happy cop would be even more quick to shoot than he otherwise might have been.

doesn't it.

and that definitely adds a different element to the mix.

but what are the grounds for suing the company? The 911 caller wasn't an employee, was he?

Is that they allowed a BB gun to be sold in an unpackaged way so if that is all you were buying it would appear as though you were walking through the store with a weapon.

And Walmart certainly has deep pockets, they just don't share it with the employees

Or is it open carry for white folks only?
Yes I know this story and there was no reason to even enter the store -after all the store never called any cops and the man was walking with a shelf gun sold in the store.

White men can carry around assault weapons and spout off about the 2nd amendment. Little black boys can't carry around water pistols without worrying about being killed by the police.