Indiana police: Heroic actions kept Walmart shooter from doing more harm

EVANSVILLE, IND. the first criminal incident involving Mosley at the store. He was fired from the store after being charged with four misdemeanor counts of battery on May 18, 2022, after he attacked four co-workers. A probable cause affidavit filed in the case states that Mosley told police he had issues with people at work and “lost control.”

The case was eventually referred to Vanderburgh County’s mental health court.

He had pleaded guilty to the battery charges and was complying with mental health treatment through the court, Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers said. Mosely had in fact appeared for a progress hearing on Thursday afternoon, just hours before the shooting.

Moers said Mosely’s conviction on misdemeanor battery charges “wouldn’t be one that exclude him from owning a handgun, necessarily.”

Walmart, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retail giant, said in a statement that the “entire Walmart family is shocked by the senseless violence that occurred at our Evansville store, and our hearts are with our associate at this time.”

The company said in a separate statement that it does not discuss personnel matters involving current or former employees, but said that Mosley “has not worked for Walmart since May 2022.”

Indiana has a “red flag” law, which legislators passed in 2005 and allows police or courts to seize guns from people who show warning signs of violence. However, after the May incident at the store, red flag court proceedings were not initiated against Mosley, according to Winston Lin, chief deputy prosecutor for the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s office, said Friday.

Indiana University law professor Jody Madeira, an expert on Indiana’s “red flag” law, said prosecutors most likely would not have filed such an action in this case office unless there was a threat of gun violence in Mosley’s past, and there was no indication there was.

She noted he had been complying with courtordered mental health treatment.

Evansville, a city of around 116,000 residents along the Ohio River, is about 170 miles southwest of Indianapolis.

A Walmart manager in Chesapeake, Virginia, killed six people in November when he began shooting wildly inside a break room before a routine employee meeting, two days ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Six people were also wounded. The gunman shot and killed himself before officers arrived.