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Lakewood restaurant customers used tables as shields during shooting rampage

The Rock Wood Fired Pizza.jpg
Posted at 6:18 PM, Dec 28, 2021
and last updated 2021-12-28 20:39:36-05

LAKEWOOD, Colo. - On Tuesday, employees at the Rock Wood Fired Pizza restaurant in Lakewood's Belmar Shopping District spent the morning cleaning up glass from shattered windows, following a shooting rampage Monday night that sent bullets flying into the restaurant.

“I heard multiple gunshots and turned around and came back in and one of my cooks was on the ground crawling,” said Tyler Gunderson, front house manager at The Rock Wood Fired Pizza.

Gunderson says employees and customers flipped over tables and chairs to use as shields.

“People were running towards the back, and me and a cook helped get people into the back and get people into the bar cooler,” he said.

Gunderson says customers hid in the bar cooler, restrooms, and the kitchen for several hours while the restaurant remained on lock-down. He says thankfully, no one inside of the restaurant was hurt.

“A lot of the bullets just hit the windows," Gunderson said. "Some of them got stopped in the frames, that's what stopped them from maybe hurting anybody."

Even though there were no physical injuries, the manager says he spent the day checking on his staff members' emotional states.

“Just wanted to make sure they're okay right now,” he said.

The Rock Wood Fired Pizza will remain closed until Thursday, December 30.

If you would like to help the victims in the Denver-Lakewood mass shooting, click here.