Karl Etters

Democrat staff writer

AJ Frazier was just making his morning rounds.

But when he appeared on Chipotle Mexican Grill’s live video monitoring system early Tuesday morning – body armor clad, a pistol on his hip and carrying a large bag – police jumped into action fearing an armed gunman had holed up in the Apalachee Parkway eatery.

It's a sign of the times.

Tallahassee Police officers surrounded the building, which is nestled in the corner spot of the Gulf Winds Shopping Plaza. SWAT team members approached in an armored vehicle telling whoever may be inside to come out with their hands up.

But Frazier, a driver-carrier for Brinks dropping off money, had already left for his other morning stops. False alarm.

"Normally someone is there, but no one was there this morning,” Frazier said after a short discussion with TPD investigators in the parking lot of the shopping center. "The door was unlocked so there was nothing out of the ordinary for me."

Frazier, a driver for a year, said after the alarm in the building sounded, he left.

But Beth Weiner didn’t know that.

The 22-year-old Florida State University graduate student usually opens the store in the morning. As she ate her breakfast at nearby New Leaf Market, people started to tell her what was happening just blocks away.

“I get breakfast there every morning. They know that I work there and they said are you about to go into work?” Weiner said as she watched police swarming Chipotle and helicopters buzzed overhead. “They said ‘Did you know that there’s a gunman there? This is scary.”

TPD spokesman David Northway said the security company that monitors the restaurant reported that the armed man walked in but had not left the store when police were called.

Officers flooded the area, closing roads, evacuating nearby buildings and bringing in a robot to move into the scene to keep officers out of harm’s way. SWAT members posted up behind their vehicles, rifles pointed toward the restaurant’s large windows.

No one was inside as officers moved in and cleared the scene.

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.