By Roger Lanse

On Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, a Silver City Police Department officer was dispatched to Walmart concerning an aggravated assault complaint. According to an SCPD incident report, the officer was told by Walmart employees that a female associate had a handgun pointed at her by a customer.

The victim stated she has interacted about 10 times with the customer, later identified as Jan Westmoreland, 70, of Silver City. He never asks about help to find an item in the store, the victim said, but he always stated 'he was looking for an excuse to talk to her." Today, however, after asking the victim to go have a beer or go shooting with him, to which the victim replied "no," Westmoreland showed her a revolver he was carrying and pointed it at her. The victim stated she was afraid because the gun could have gone off and she had no idea what his intentions were. The victim said in her statement, "I felt scared, vulnerable, and uncomfortable. I did not know what to do or say when he was pointing the gun at me. It was even difficult to say no while the gun was pointed at me because I did not know what he was capable of and considering there was no safety on the gun."

Westmoreland told the victim, the report said, after pointing the gun at her for some time, "It's a .22, it could kill a person," before placing the weapon in his back pocket, saying, "No one even knows I'm carrying this."

Other female employees told the officer they also had "stalkerish" encounters with Westmoreland.

According to the report, the officer will be filing a warrant on Westmoreland for aggravated stalking and aggravated assault.