Law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, Arkansas, on June 21, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP
Police said a fourth victim has died a day after a shooter opened fire at an Arkansas grocery store, wounding nine others and riddling cars with bullet holes as panicked bystanders scrambled for cover.
The person died on June 22, Arkansas state police said in a statement, listing a total of 14 people as 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 statement.
“The wounded range in age between 20 and 65,” police said. Four were still hospitalised, including a woman who was in critical condition. The wounded agents were identified as Fordyce Police Officer James Johnson (31) who was released from a hospital on Saturday evening, and Stuttgart Police Officer John Hudson (24) whose injuries were said 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 exchanging gunfire with law enforcement” and was then released to police custody and taken to the Ouachita County Detention Centre,” police said in the statement.
Police have not released a motive. A media briefing to update about the shooting was announced for 2 p.m. on June 23.
As of Friday, a state police spokesperson did not know if Posey had an attorney, and there was no immediate response to a phone message left with the agency’s public information office on Saturday night.
The Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on Saturday that he was being held at the detention centre but had no information about a possible lawyer. No inmate record was online for him yet.
The shooting took place around 11.30 a.m. on Friday at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a city of about 3,200 people located 65 miles (104 km) south of Little Rock.
Roderick Rogers, a member of the city council, said he called the sheriff when employees at his restaurant nearby notified him of the shooting. When he got there, he saw people running for cover in every direction, even one running to the hospital nearby. “People were just jumping into cars to get to safety,” Mr. Rogers said on Friday.
Video posted on social media showed at least one person lying in the parking lot, while another captured multiple gunshots ringing out.
Images from reporters on the scene showed a slew of bullet holes in the store’s window, and spent shell casings strewn throughout the parking lot. In video images, 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 its backdrop. In 2022 a white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket. That came a little more than a year after 10 people were fatally shot at supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
