Fourth victim dead one day after Arkansas grocery store shooting, police say | News, Sports, Jobs

Damage can be seen on a front window of law enforcement officers working the scene of a shooting at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, Ark., Friday, June 21, 2024. (Colin Murphey/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Arkansas authorities say a fourth victim has died a day after a shooter opened fire at a grocery store, wounding nine others and peppering cars with bullet holes as Panicked passers-by rushed for shelter. State police say in a news release that the person died Saturday evening. The press release lists a total of 14 people affected by gunfire: “11 civilians, two law enforcement officers and the suspect.” The dead are identified as Shirley Taylor, 62, Callie Weems, 23, Roy Sturgis, 50, and Ellen Shrum, 81. Police say the dead were “all civilians.” The injured are aged between 20 and 65. Four are still hospitalized, including one woman in critical condition.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Police say a fourth victim has died a day after a shooter opened fire at an Arkansas grocery store, wounding nine others and riddled cars with bullet holes as panicked passers-by rushed for shelter.

The person died Saturday evening, Arkansas State Police said in a statement, listing a total of 14 people hit by gunfire: “11 civilians, two law enforcement officers and the suspect.”

The dead were identified as Shirley Taylor, 62, Callie Weems, 23, Roy Sturgis, 50, and Ellen Shrum, 81 — “all civilians,” according to the release.

The injured are aged between 20 and 65, police said. Four of them were still hospitalized, including a woman in critical condition.

The injured officers were identified as James Johnson, 31, a Fordyce police officer, who was released from the hospital Saturday evening, and John Hudson, 24, a Stuttgart police officer, whose injuries are believed to be minor.

Police said the suspect is Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg, and he will be charged with four counts of capital murder.

“He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement,” then was returned to police custody and taken to the Ouachita County Detention Center , the police said in the press release.

Police have not released a motive. A press briefing to provide an update on the shooting was announced Sunday at 2 p.m.

A State Police spokesperson did not know Friday whether Posey had an attorney, and there was no immediate response to a phone message left with the agency's public information office Saturday evening. The Ouachita County Sheriff's Office confirmed Saturday that he was being held at the detention center but had no information on a possible attorney. No inmate records were yet online for him.

The shooting happened around 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a town of about 3,200 people located 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of Little Rock.

City Council member Roderick Rogers said he called the sheriff when employees at his nearby restaurant informed him of the shooting. When he arrived there, he saw people running for cover in all directions, even one running towards the nearby hospital.

“People were just jumping in cars to get to safety,” Rogers said Friday.

Video posted to social media showed at least one person lying in the parking lot, while another captured several gunshots ringing out.

Images from journalists on site showed numerous bullet holes in the store window and spent shell casings scattered in the parking lot. In video footage, local and state agencies could be seen responding with at least one medical helicopter landing nearby.

It was the latest mass shooting with a grocery store as a backdrop. In 2022, a white supremacist killed 10 black people at a Buffalo supermarket. This came a little more than a year after 10 people were shot and killed at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.

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