Shooting at grocery store in Arkansas: Police report fourth victim killed

A day after a gunman opened fire at an Arkansas grocery store, a fourth victim died, police said, wounding nine others and riddling cars with bullet holes as panicked bystanders ran for cover.

The person died on June 22, Arkansas State Police said in a statement. A total of 14 people were shot: “11 civilians, two police officers and the suspect.” The dead were identified as Shirley Taylor (62), Callie Weems (23), Roy Sturgis (50) and Ellen Shrum (81) – “all civilians,” the statement said.

“The injured are between 20 and 65 years old,” police said. Four of them are still in hospital, including a woman who is in critical condition. The injured were identified as Fordyce police officer James Johnson (31), who was released from hospital on Saturday evening, and Stuttgart police officer John Hudson (24), whose injuries are said to be minor.

According to police, the suspect is Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg, and he is charged with four counts of capital crimes.

“He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries after exchanging gunfire with police” and was then released into police custody and taken to the Ouachita County Detention Center,” the police statement said.

Police have not released a motive. A press conference with updated information on the shooting has been announced for June 23 at 2 p.m.

As of Friday, a State Police spokesman did not know whether Posey had an attorney, and there was no immediate response to a phone message left with the agency’s public relations department Saturday evening.

The Ouachita County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Saturday that he was being held in the detention center, but had no information on a possible attorney. There was no online file on him yet.

The shooting occurred around 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, a town of about 3,200 residents 65 miles 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 got there, he saw people running for cover in all directions, one even running to the nearby hospital. “People were just jumping in their cars to get to safety,” Rogers said Friday.

A video posted on social media showed at least one person lying in the parking lot, while another showed several gunshots.

Images from reporters on the scene showed a series of bullet holes in the store’s window and shell casings scattered throughout the parking lot. Video footage showed local and state authorities responding and at least one rescue helicopter landing nearby.

It was the most recent mass shooting to take place in a grocery store. In 2022, a white supremacist killed 10 black people in a Buffalo supermarket. That came just over a year after 10 people were shot and killed in a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket.