2 shot, 1 fatally, at Kroger on Poplar Avenue
Police: SUV owner fired on would-be carjackers
Two people were shot and one of them was confirmed dead after an attempted carjacking at the Kroger gas station near the line between Germantown and East Memphis. A police official said the owner of a vehicle shot the would-be robbers.
At the scene, police officers and vehicles focused their attention on a white Mercedes SUV at a gas pump with its driver side door open.
The incident began when three to four people tried to take this vehicle at gunpoint, said Memphis Police Department Lt. Col. Rodney Adair. “The victim was able to retrieve a handgun, turn around and fired shots, striking two,” Adair said. One of the attempted robbers died, one was injured, and the vehicle owner was unharmed, Adair said.
MPD said on Twitter the second person shot was in non-critical condition, and that one person was detained.
The owner said there were three or four people involved in the attempted robbery, Adair said. It was unclear what happened to the other person or persons involved.
The gas station is in the same shopping center as a large Kroger grocery store.
Witness Sonya Mull said she was leaving the nearby Tropical Smoothie Cafe restaurant with a friend when she heard several shots. “We were really surprised because of the location and the time of day,” she said. “Why would we be hearing gunshots over here?”
The shooting took place about 1:20 p.m. on a sunny day in an affluent area with heavy vehicle traffic.
Mull said she and her friend hung back from the shooting scene until emergency vehicles arrived, which seemed to take a long time, she said. Then she and the friend drove over toward the gas station.
She said she saw a young man lying motionless on the gas station parking lot. Then emergency responders performed CPR, she said.
She said the situation was unsettling. “It’s just very sobering to think that this happened on both sides as a result of something material, that someone would want to take something of someone, another person’s possessions and that someone would value that possession enough to take someone’s life.”
“On both sides — to me, it’s a very hard, hard hard situation. I just hope that these young people out here who are trying to take things from people, stop it. Just stop it.”
Chiquita Boyd, 43, said she came to the area after watching a Facebook Live in which a person filmed the scene and said people were trying to carjack a vehicle, and a person returned fire.
She said the people who were shot were her son’s friend and her own nephew.
“I don’t know a lot. I just saw this,” she said, gesturing at the scene of police tape, bustling investigators and remnants of the crime scene: a shoe lay in the gas station parking lot near the parked white SUV. Discarded medical equipment lay a few feet away from that, and in another spot on the pavement, broken glass sparkled.
She said she rushed to the scene. “I was so frantic.”
She said her son believed his friend had died — she says she only knows the friend’s street name.
The incident comes as the city grapples with a longstanding problem with gun violence. MPD has warned the city is on course to see a record number of homicides this year. The current record for homicides in one year is 228, set in 2016.
In late August, the homicide count for the year was 199, and with roughly 25 homicides per month, the city was on pace to reach 300 killings in 2020, MPD Deputy Chief Samuel Hines said.
The shooting is one of several reported within the prior 24 hours.
About 7 p.m. on Sunday, officers responded to a shooting on Rocky Park Drive, which is near Raines and Kirby Parkway in southeast Shelby County. A male victim was found with a gunshot wound and pronounced dead, MPD posted on Twitter.
And at about 7:55 p.m. on Sunday, three people were shot at the Valero gas station at 443 E. Shelby Drive. Two victims were taken to a hospital: one in non-critical condition, one in critical condition. The third victim was pronounced dead at the scene, MPD posted on Twitter.
According to preliminary information, the victims were sitting inside of a vehicle when several male suspects dressed in dark clothing approached and shot into the victims’ car. There is no further description available at this point, MPD said.
MPD is asking anyone with information on the shootings to call Crime Stoppers at 528-2274.
Reach investigative reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@ commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.