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The latest victim died Saturday night (Sunday AEST), Arkansas State Police said in a statement, listing a total of 14 people as shot dead, including 11 civilians, two law enforcement officers and the suspect.
It was the latest mass shooting in the background of a grocery store. In 2022, a white supremacist killed 10 black people in a supermarket in Buffalo. It comes just over a year after 10 people were fatally shot at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
The Arkansas 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 south of Little Rock.
A video posted on social media shows at least one person lying in the parking lot while another takes multiple shots.
Images from reporters on the scene showed multiple bullet holes in the store’s window and shell casings scattered throughout the parking lot. Local and state agencies could be seen responding, with at least one medical helicopter landing nearby.
The dead have been identified as Shirley Taylor, 62; Callie Weems, 23; Roy Sturgis, 50; and Ellen Schrum, 81. They were all civilians, according to the statement.
The injured are aged between 20 and 65, the police said. Four are still hospitalized, including a woman in critical condition.
The injured agents were identified as Fordyce Police Officer James Johnson, 31, who was released from the hospital Saturday night; and Stuttgart Police Officer John Hudson, 24, whose injuries are believed to be minor.
Police identified the suspect as Travis Eugene Posey, 44, of New Edinburg, and said 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,” police said in a statement. Posey was released by police and taken to the Ouachita County Detention Center.
Authorities have not released a motive. A media briefing to inform the public about the shooting was scheduled for 2pm on Sunday (5am Monday AEST).
As of Friday, a state police spokesman 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 that Posey was being held at the detention center, but said the office had no information on who might represent him. An inmate record has not yet been posted online.
Roderick Rogers, a city council member, said he called the sheriff when employees at his nearby restaurant notified him of the shooting. When he got there, he saw people running for cover in all directions, one even running to the hospital nearby.
“People were just jumping in cars to get to safety,” Rogers said Friday.
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