SAN JOSE — A shopper at Westfield Valley Fair mall claims in a civil lawsuit that a security guard pulled a gun on him after he hit a traffic cone while trying to leave the mall in December.

In the Santa Clara County Superior Court filing submitted last week, San Jose resident Nicholas Buchanan, an Apple engineer, is seeking unspecified damages against the mall, a security contractor, and two security guards for a Dec. 5, 2015 encounter. The lawsuit also takes issue with how the guard who drew a pistol on Buchanan was not licensed to carry a firearm at the time.

The damages sought by Buchanan stem from allegations including assault, false imprisonment, and inflicting of emotional distress.

“This is serious business when someone stares you down with a .45 on a Saturday afternoon. He was totally out of control,” said Richard Alexander, Buchanan’s attorney. “Nothing (Buchanan) did was out of the ordinary other than putting over a traffic cone … The security guard considered that a capital offense.”

Westfield provided a statement to this newspaper Thursday saying “the company does not comment on matters under litigation.” San Jose-based Security Risk Management Inc., which employed the two guards at the center of the lawsuit, could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to the lawsuit, Buchanan was leaving a mall parking garage and got caught in in a line of traffic heading toward Monroe Street along the the southern boundary of the mall property.

Buchanan said the vehicle in front of him stopped then started backing up, and with another vehicle behind him, he drove around the reversing vehicle and continued toward Monroe Street. But he apparently hit a traffic cone at some point during the maneuver.

The lawsuit claims security guard Francis Lancaster-Abraham Fielding, working for SRMI, ran after Buchanan’s vehicle and tapped on the front-driver side window while yelling at him to get out of the vehicle.

Buchanan states that he stayed in his car with the doors locked and windows closed, and that was followed by the sight of Fielding drawing a handgun and pointing at him. Buchanan used his cellphone to take photos and record video of the confrontation.

That moment was soon followed by another guard named in the lawsuit, Robert Genereux, who was Fielding’s supervisor and in the video is seen trying to get Buchanan to open his car door and is heard saying, “Unlock your door or I’m going to take out your window.”

All the while, Buchanan is reluctant to comply, citing the previous act by Fielding. The encounter ends with Genereux apologizing to Buchanan about Fielding drawing his weapon.

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The lawsuit contends that the encounter may have been fueled by Fielding’s belief that Buchanan tried to run him down with his car. Police responded to the scene and determined that Fielding’s state guard license and firearms permit had expired, meaning he was not lawfully carrying the weapon, according a police report.

Police recommended that Fielding be charged with unlawful brandishing of a firearm, but the Santa Clara County District Attorney declined to file charges in the case, citing insufficient evidence. Alexander said SRMI terminated Fielding after the December incident.

“The fact Fielding was brandishing a weapon and was unlicensed bears closer scrutiny,” Alexander said. “We are all fortunate this didn’t turn out worse than it did.”