It all happened outside of the Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina. The restaurant was running a series of Star Wars-themed promotional events for Star Wars Day. As part of the event, the restaurant's owner had one of his employees dress up as a Stormtrooper in order to attract attention from potential customers.
Unfortunately, the employee attracted the wrong type of attention. The LPS received two 911 calls reporting a weapons complaint. They apparently believed that the plastic toy blaster that the store employee was carrying in the iconic plastic costume was an actual gun. Three officers surrounded the frightened employee, holding her at gunpoint, and demanded that she drop the weapon. She immediately tossed the plastic toy to the ground.
They yelled at her to get onto the ground. Of course, she could barely move because of the plastic costume. She managed to get down to her knees but struggled to get down any further because of the costume. So the police officers shoved her to the ground face down.
Meanwhile, the business' owner was yelling at the police that she was carrying a toy.
The sobbing 19-year-old's helmet was pulled off, revealed that she had a bloodied nose. She was cuffed and eventually arrested and detained in one of the police vehicles. Fortunately, she was eventually released without being charged.
After international scorn, the LPS has agreed to look into the way that the officers responded to this situation. On the other hand, they have largely doubled down on how they treated the young woman.
The restaurant owner isn't having it. "Police officers had guns drawn, pointed at my employee. They were yelling at her to put the gun down so she threw the plastic gun on the ground. At that point in time when I came out, she was on her knees kneeling down on the ground. The police had already checked and seen that the gun was plastic so they already knew that there wasn’t an issue or a risk there."
You can watch video of the incident here.