LITTLE ROCK (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 yesterday, 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 Center, police said in the statement.
Police have not released a motive. 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 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 11.30am on Friday at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a city of about 3,200 people located 104 kilometres 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.
