13 SHOT, 1 KILLED
No motive as Tenn. gunman kills self
A shooter opened fire in a Tennessee grocery store Thursday, killing at least one and wounding a dozen more before taking his own life.
The early afternoon shooting took place at a Kroger in the Memphis suburb of Collierville, Police Chief Dale Lane told reporters at a press conference.
Lane called it “the most horrific event that’s occurred in Colliverville history” and said the 12 wounded people were transported to multiple hospitals with “very serious injuries.”
“I’ve been involved in this for 34 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he told reporters.
Neither the shooter nor the victims have been identified, although Lane said the killer was a male. A 14th person walked into a local hospital after suffering an anxiety attack while at the scene.
The first shots were fired around 1:30 p.m. local time, with the first police officers reaching the scene almost immediately afterward, according to Lane.
After the shooting stopped, cops went room to room and aisle to aisle in search of employees and shoppers who had been hiding since the bullets started
flying. At least one person hid in a freezer, while another escaped to the roof.
“They were doing what they had been trained to do: run, hide, fight,” Lane said.
Cops found the shooter’s car in the Kroger parking lot, but were still waiting Thursday afternoon for equipment that would
enable them to properly examine the vehicle, Lane said.
He did not provide any details about the car or whether the shooter was a current or former Kroger employee, citing the active investigation and noting that the shooting occurred just two hours before his first press conference.
“I was walking back toward the floral department and I heard a gunshot,” employee Glenda McDonald said. “It sounded like it was coming from the deli. And I ran out the front door and they had already shot the front door. And I’m in the parking lot now. And several people did get shot, some customers and employees too. I don’t know how many.”
Brignetta Dickerson told CNN affiliate WMC she originally thought the gunshots were “balloons popping.”
The longtime Kroger employee then saw the gunman shoot a coworker and customer.
“He kept on shooting, shooting, shooting,” Dickerson said.
Police did not provide details on the gun used by the shooter.
Earlier this year, Tennessee became the latest state to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns without first clearing a state-level background check. Law enforcement groups and gun-control advocates opposed the measure and said it could lead to more gun violence.
Schools were briefly locked down throughout Collierville, which is home to about 50,000 people and sits 20 miles east of downtown Memphis. After police secured the scene, students were dismissed as usual.
Two mass shootings earlier this year involved former or current employees opening fire at their workplaces. In April, a 19-year-old ex-worker killed eight people at a FedEx plant in Indianapolis. Just over a month later, an employee with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority fatally shot nine people at a VTA railyard in San Jose.