Police said the 3-year-old boy is expected to survive, while the officers who fired were placed on leave pending a grand jury review.
OMAHA, Neb. — Omaha police shot and killed a 31-year-old woman Tuesday after officers said she took a 3-year-old boy at knifepoint from his caretaker inside a Walmart and slashed him in the parking lot as they moved in to stop her.
The attack at the store near South 72nd and Pine streets quickly became more than a single violent episode. By Wednesday, the boy had undergone surgery and gone home, police had named the two officers who opened fire, and court records had pushed the case into a wider debate about how a woman already under mental health supervision was able to enter a large store, take a knife from a shelf and get close enough to wound a child she did not know.
Police said the confrontation began at about 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, when Noemi Guzman entered the Walmart and took a large kitchen knife from inside the store. Deputy Chief Scott Gray said surveillance video showed Guzman approach a woman caring for the boy, display the knife and “took possession of the child,” forcing the caretaker to walk in front of a shopping cart while Guzman followed with the child still seated inside. The group moved out of the store and into the parking lot, where Gray said the two women argued for several minutes. Officers reached the south parking lot entrance at about 9:20 a.m., according to police. Gray said Guzman ignored repeated commands to drop the knife. As officers closed in, she started swiping at the boy and cut the left side of his face and one of his hands. At least one officer fired, and Guzman died at the scene.
The first public account came from police and was later backed by body camera stills and witness descriptions released after the shooting. One 911 caller asked for help without fully explaining what was happening, while another caller reported a woman with a large kitchen knife and a child. Police said the boy’s wounds were serious but not life-threatening, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment. Gray said investigators do not yet know what set off the attack, and police have said Guzman and the caretaker were strangers. He also said the scene inside the store may not have drawn immediate notice because the movement looked ordinary enough that shoppers did not realize a kidnapping was underway. In one police description, the two women appeared to “casually walk out of the store,” masking the danger until the confrontation reached the open parking lot, where witnesses could see the caretaker crying and asking for help.
By the next day, court files and local reporting showed that Guzman had already been on the radar of the justice and mental health systems. In March 2024, she was accused of stabbing her father, trying to set his house on fire and breaking into the rectory at St. Frances Cabrini Catholic Church in Omaha while armed with a kitchen knife. A priest, Father Damian Zuerlein, later said he barricaded himself in an upstairs room and escaped through a window as Guzman tore through the building. Courts later found Guzman not responsible by reason of insanity in that case. In June 2025, a judge ruled that she continued to suffer from schizophrenia, remained a danger to herself or others and should stay under court supervision. The court scheduled her next annual review for June 12, 2026, and local reports said there was no sign in the file that she had fallen out of compliance with her treatment plan before Tuesday’s attack.
Another layer of the timeline emerged as local stations reported that officers had contact with Guzman in the days and hours before the Walmart violence. One report said police were called to a QuikTrip early Monday on a domestic disturbance complaint and that Guzman declined hospital care. Another said officers took her Tuesday morning from an apartment complex to Bergan Mercy after concerns about her mental state. A later local report said Guzman left because she had arrived for a medical issue rather than on a psychiatric hold. Her boyfriend, identified only as Carlos in a television interview, said he had noticed something was wrong during the previous two weeks and said she was due for another treatment shot that week. Those details have sharpened questions about the gap between court supervision and emergency intervention, though officials have not said that any single missed step would have changed what happened at Walmart.
The official case now moves along two tracks, one focused on the attempted kidnapping and stabbing, the other on the police shooting. Omaha police identified the officers involved as Roger Oseka and Brian Seaton, both patrol officers with 22 years of service. The department said both were placed on paid critical incident leave and will be interviewed later under department policy. Police also said the Douglas County Attorney’s Office was advised of the investigation and that the shooting will be presented to a grand jury, as Nebraska law requires when a person dies while in custody or while being apprehended by law enforcement. Omaha police said investigators from the Nebraska State Patrol and local sheriff’s offices are assisting. Officials have not announced a grand jury date, released full body camera video or explained whether more store surveillance will be made public, but police said the department intends to follow the normal release process tied to the review.
Outside the formal investigation, the story has taken shape through people who were there and the family of the wounded boy. Becky Bissell, a bystander who said the caretaker ran to her car in tears, told local television that the woman cried out, “She has my son,” before Bissell called 911. While she was on the phone, Bissell said she heard the caretaker scream, “She’s cutting my son.” Inside the store, a worker said employees were sent to the back after an intercom alert announced a lockdown. The next day, the boy’s parents, Sara and Casey Hillman, spoke at a church and said he was released from the hospital about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday after surgery. Casey Hillman praised the officers, saying, “If they wouldn’t have reacted when they did, we wouldn’t still have him.” He also said the emotional damage was already visible when his son said the next morning that he did not want to go outside because it felt scary.
As of Saturday, the boy was recovering at home, the two officers remained on leave and investigators were still trying to explain why Guzman chose a stranger’s child. The next public milestones are the officers’ formal interviews, the grand jury review and any release of additional video or records that fill in the final hours before the attack.
Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.